Christians Who Helped Convert Held in Egypt

Police have detained two Egyptian Christians who helped a man who converted from Islam to Christianity, one of their colleagues said 9 August. The two men, named as Adel Fawzi and Peter Ezzat, also offered legal help to the family of a man who died during a police raid on his house this week, said Nader Fawzy, the president of the Middle East Christian Association (MECA).

Adel Fawzi represents the Canadian-based MECA in Egypt and Peter Ezzat is one of the association's Egyptian staff.

"Police took them off at 2.40 p.m. (1140 GMT) yesterday and they have been accused of five or six things including insulting Islam and trying to convert Muslims. But they have no evidence," Fawzy told Reuters by telephone from Canada.

The convert, Mohamed Hegazy, had gone to the association for help and became a member. "Some Muslims say they (Fawzi and Ezzat) pushed him to convert but that is untrue," Fawzy said.

Hegazy has launched an unprecedented attempt through the courts to force the Egyptian bureaucracy to recognise his conversion to Christianity, creating controversy in a society where Muslims very rarely abandon their religion openly.

Fawzy said the association became involved in the case of the man who died this week because it was a human rights case and the family was poor. The family is not Christian.

The prosecutor general ordered on Wednesday three policemen to be held in custody on suspicion they killed the man in his Cairo flat and threw his body off a fourth-floor balcony.

The original police version, as reported in Egyptian newspapers, was that the man, Nasser Gadallah, fell while trying to jump from one balcony to another to escape police.

A police source said unnamed lawyers had complained to the prosecutor general that the MECA and its Web site "insulted Islam and the prophet Mohammad on behalf of diaspora Copts".

Headlines on the Web site, www.m-e-c-a.com, include: "Islam began alien and will revert to being alien", "Is Mohammad a messenger from God?" "This Web site reveals the true face of Islam."