EGYPT COUNTRY PROFILE
Families still report girls being abducted, forced to convert to Islam and coerced into marriage — particularly in Upper Egypt. Islamic institutions, including Al-Azhar, 53 and police have been accused of complicity. Comprehensive figures are hard to come by, but more than 30 kidnapping cases were documented in 2024. 54 In Upper Egypt, communities also suffered violent attacks, and authorities often fail to hold perpetrators to account. 55 Customary reconciliation, a parallel system for ending disputes, is often used in these situations, but this system penalizes Christians, who have been pressured to accept the will of the majority community (see October 2025). Despite serious ongoing problems, positive signs continue to be seen in the largest Christian community in the Arab world. In December 2024, the Ministry of Justice and Egypt’s five officially recognized Christian denominations signed the long-awaited draft of the Personal Status Law for Christians. Among its provisions: men and women can inherit equally. Following criticisms that there were major delays approving new Christian buildings — a power previously restricted to Egypt’s president — the 2016 Church Construction Law devolved this authority. As of April 2026, 3,804 out of c .5,500 applications had legal recognition. 56 But the legislation has not been universally implemented, and attacks on churches or sites allocated for new ones continue to occur.
SELECTED INCIDENTS
OCTOBER 2025 Muslim villagers pelted Christian properties with stones and kindled fires on Christian- owned farmland in Nazlet Jalf, Beni Mazar, Minya Governorate. The attacks occurred on Tuesday, October 23, after rumors of a relationship between a Christian teenager and a Muslim girl circulated online. At a reconciliation session the following day, the Christian teenager’s grandfather was fined E£1 million ( c .$18,240) and the family told to sell their home and leave the village. The teenager was detained, pending investigation by the public prosecutor into his relationship. 60 FEBRUARY 2026 Without prior notice, Central Security Forces bulldozed a Christian compound including a wooden chapel in 15 th -of-May City on Tuesday, February 3. Official permission for a new church to be built there had been sought and the community was raising funds after officials verbally encouraged the project. Tear gas was used to disperse Christians who clashed with officers overseeing the demolition. It was subsequently claimed the demolition was triggered by the compound’s walls encroaching on neighboring land, due to a builders’ error. 61
OCTOBER 2024 Julia Atef, a 21-year-old Christian university student, disappeared on Sunday, October 26 on her way to St Mark’s Church in Shubra Al-Khayma, Qalyubia Governorate. 57 NOVEMBER 2024 Three Christians were hospitalized after being attacked by four men wielding swords and machetes in Ashrouba village in Minya Governorate’s Beni Mazar District. FEBRUARY 2025 Three Christian women — Marina Khalaf Greiss, 19, Erini Emil, 17, and Marina Rizk, 20 — disappeared in one week. Greiss and Rizk were subsequently returned to their families, having been forcibly converted and married to their abductors. 58 JULY 2025 Authorities arrested Russian Orthodox convert Saeid Mansour Abdulraziq on multiple charges, including terrorism, after he requested his identification papers be changed to show his religion as Christian instead of Muslim. 59 His June 2026 trial was adjourned.
16 | Persecuted and Forgotten?
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