The All Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG) has highlighted a Christian Egyptian YouTuber as “Prisoner of Conscience of the Month”.
Augustinos Samaan is a Coptic Christian who was sentenced to five years' hard labour for the content of his YouTube channel. His channel covers common questions about Christianity and compares it with Islam.
Egyptian authorities deemed this a “misuse of social media” and said Samaan’s content went against blasphemy laws and showed “contempt of religion”. Samaan, with support from ADF International, has filed an appeal against his conviction.
This year the APPG has raised six questions in Parliament about the state of religious freedom in Egypt. In response, the government has said that it “regularly” raises concerns about human rights with the Egyptian government and that it is committed to religious freedom for all. It is unclear what, if any, effect this has had.
Egypt, while not among the worst offenders for anti-Christian persecution, is still a country of concern.
Open Doors ranks it the 42nd worst country for persecution in the world and notes that converts from Islam find it impossible to have their conversion officially recognised and often face detention from the security services.
The ancient Coptic Christian community has things slightly better, at least officially, but can face attack and abuse from their Muslim neighbours, particularly in rural areas.
Last year ADF’s legal counsel for global religious freedom, Lizzie Francis Brink, said that most persecution in Egypt comes from the general populace, rather than the state.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, however, warned in October that the country appeared to be conducting a crackdown on non-Muslims and unregistered churches, with many arrested for “joining an illegal group” or “contempt of religion”. One of those arrested was an atheist YouTuber.
Rights groups have noted that while the Egyptian constitution officially protects freedom of religion, in practice it does not do so for unrecognised religious communities.
