By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
Since the Egyptian "January 25 Revolution," the number of Christian girls coerced into converting to Islam has skyrocketed, according to Father Filopateer Gamil of St. Mary's Church, Giza.
"More than two to three girls disappear everyday in Giza alone," said Gamil. "The cases that are brought to public attention are few compared to what the numbers actually are."
Coptic Pope Shenouda III had first warned about forced conversions in 1976: "There is a practice to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands."
Christian parents claim they don't get any assistance from the police, not even after their girls have been coerced into converting to Islam, which is illegal before the age of 18.
"There is no legitimate reason which prevents Muslim men from marrying women 'of the Book' -- either Jewish or Christian -- without their conversion to Islam," said Coptic activist Michael Saeed. "What we have here is a Saudi Arabia funded campaign of Islamization of Christians in Egypt."
Egypt4Christ first monitored the abduction and forced conversion of Christian minors after an Alexandrian priest reported that a ten-year old Coptic girl was sexually abused by a 20-year-old Muslim university student. An investigation into this abuse exposed a highly organized Muslim ring operating out of the Fatah Mosque in Alexandria where Egypt4Christ uncovered a "religious call" operation in which young Muslims are urged to approach Coptic school girls and manipulate them through sexual exploitation and blackmail; the intent of the operation was to defile the girls in front of their parents, thus forcing them to flee their homes. Once isolated from their relatives, conversion to Islam was offered to the girls as the only solution to their family situation.
"The architect of this idea, who diligently promotes it among the Muslim youth, is Salafi Muslim Sheikh Osama Borhammi, in collaboration with other Sheikhs," said Rasha Nour, head of Egypt4Christ.
The Egypt4Christ report published the names of those involved in this forced Islamization, including the names of co-operating officers of the Alexandria headquarters of State Security and the locations of where Christian girls were kept.