Two reports highlight relentless Muslim Jihad and Genocide against Coptic Christians

Egyptian President el-Sisi seems unable to protect Coptic Christians as Muslim attacks escalate. Egyptian churches are suspending all functions for remainder of July after warnings of more Islamic jihad attacks.

The two reports below emphasize how dire, hopeless, and even betrayed our Coptic brothers and sisters must feel as this horrific wave of Islamic persecution continues to worsen. Even some of their bishops are "missing the point" per an incident related in the first story below:

One bishop found himself being berated by the victims' relatives for saying, "farewell to martyrs of the homeland."
The relatives interrupted the bishop, saying, "They are not martyrs of the homeland, they are martyrs of the Church, Father!"  

Another man, Mina Lamei, told Al-Monitor that, 'Martyrdom does not mean to be killed in cold blood."
He said the state should protect its citizens, "not congratulate them on their martyrdom."

1. Egypt's Copts Say They're Tired of Being 'Martyrs' As Deadly Attacks Continue

By Jay Gotera, Christian Post via AINA, July 14, 2017:

The streams of blood from defenseless Copts massacred by Islamist extremists continue to drench Egypt--with no end in sight.

Three more Coptic were found dead in a span of eight days from the last week of June to the first week of July, with a fourth victim killed in late May, World Watch Monitor reported.

Even as the Coptic Orthodox Church held another memorial service on July 3 commemorating 40 days since the bus attack in Minya that killed 29 Copts on Ascension Day, hopes for an end to the sectarian killings remain dim.

Although the Coptic community has remained steadfast in their faith and has bravely faced the danger of living in a country where they faced intense persecution, some have expressed exasperation at the inability of the Egyptian government to protect them, adding that they have grown tired of being "martyrs" for their homeland.

Al Azhar Promoting ‘Anti-Christian’ and ‘Anti-Infidel’ Violence

"The Islamic State [ISIS] is only doing what Al Azhar — the Islamic world’s oldest and most prestigious Islamic university — teaches."

Al Azhar is where President Obama made his famous address to the Muslim world in April 2009.

See also: Islamic State Relied on Egyptian Salafi book to slaughter 21 Copts in Libya

by Raymond Ibrahim, Coptic Solidarity — September 24, 2015

While discussing how the Islamic State burns some of its victims alive—most notoriously, a Jordanian pilot—Egyptian journalist Yusuf al-Husayni remarked on his satellite program that “The Islamic State is only doing what Al Azhar teaches… and the simplest example is Ibn Kathir’s Beginning and End.”

Located in Cairo, Egypt, Al Azhar is the Islamic world’s oldest and most prestigious Islamic university.  Ibn Kathir is one of Sunni Islam’s most renowned scholars; his Beginning and End is a magisterial history of Islam.

Egypt: Terrified Christians flee homes following blasphemy accusations

"Coptic Christian homes have been attacked and families forced to flee from a village in Egypt after reports that Islam was insulted on Facebook."

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch directs his introductory comments to this report as a warning to comfortable Christians in the West who oppose "provoking" Muslims through cartoons of Muhammad or other means. But as I wrote here recently,

"Christians themselves in the Islamic world — by their very being, by their very presence — are all the provocation Muslims need to slaughter them. No cartoons required."

Egypt: Terrified Christians flee homes following blasphemy accusations
Jihad Watch — June 8, 2015

The comfortable, suburban Christians who are sitting in their armchairs and tut-tutting at us for being so uncharitable as to hold a Muhammad cartoon contest should take careful note of this. Islamic law asserts authority over non-Muslims. To send the signal that we will submit to Sharia blasphemy laws regarding drawing Muhammad, even if we are doing so out of a misguided sense of “respect,” will only embolden Islamic supremacists to make more demands. The endpoint of these demands is shown in this incident in Egypt. These comfortable, suburban Christians in the West are ensuring a future of harassment, persecution, violence and bloodshed for their children and children’s children.

More on this story. “Terrified Coptic Christians flee from their homes following blasphemy accusations,” by Oge Okonkwo, Pulse, June 3, 2015:

Coptic Christian homes have been attacked and families forced to flee from a village in Egypt after reports that Islam was insulted on Facebook. 

But some Muslims in the Beni Suef governorate in Egypt tried to protect Copts from villagers angered over alleged “insults to Islam”.

Exposed: Egypt’s Institutionalized Persecution of Coptic Christians

Bishop Agathon concludes that “Copts are between a state anvil and aggressor hammers,” meaning that, the state serves only to keep its Christian citizens in place while Islamic radicals pound away at them.

by Raymond Ibrahim — May 4, 2015

In a 25-minute interview on Arabic satellite TV with Dr. Mona Roman, Coptic Christian Bishop Agathon fully exposed the plight of his Christian flock in Minya, Egypt—a region that has a large Coptic minority that is steadily under attack.

While several important points were made, most notable was that the Egyptian State itself is often behind the persecution of and discrimination against Christians.

According to the frustrated-sounding bishop, local governmental authorities—including the State Security apparatus—are not just ignoring the attacks on Copts, but are often the very ones behind them.   For example, when the Copts were having a serious council meeting with government officials about the possibility of building a church, one of the authorities actually contacted the Islamic sheikhs of the village asking whether they “stand with the Coptic church or with the State?”  If the latter, each Muslim household was instructed to send one family member to protest against the proposed building of a church—so that security can then point to the mob and, as usual, just tell the Copts, “Sorry, no can do.”

Other times, State Security is complicit: Male and female Christian minors—currently 21 from just Minya alone said the Coptic leader—are habitually abducted by surrounding Muslims.  At the moment, the youngest Christian girl abducted had just started elementary school.  Whenever any of these attacks occur, Copts, working with the church, prepare bundles of documents, including photos and other verifications, incriminating the culprits.  These then are placed into the hands of top officials, to make sure they don’t get “lost” or “misplaced” by underlings.  The bishop named many of these top people—at no small risk to himself—and said he even put such proofs and documents into the hands of the Director of Intelligence himself.  “Absolutely nothing was done,” said the despondent Christian.

Muslims Prevent Christians from Praying in Coptic Home

Rampant violence against Christians by their Muslim "neighbors" (not merely by jihadi terrorist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram) continues to escalate throughout Islamic world.

Related:

• Egypt: Bombs Explode Near Two Churches on Easter Sunday
• Boy Set on Fire for Being Christian in Pakistan
• Broken Arm, Threats to Family: Price of Reporting Muslim Persecution of Christians
• Coptic Christian Arrested for Offending Muslims, Witch-Hunt for 5 Others

By Raymond Ibrahim, April 12, 2015

It is not enough that Muslims in Egypt prevent Christians from building or even renovating churches, but, as in other Muslim majority nations, when Christians merely meet in one of their homes, Muslims still attack and prevent them.

After Muslims in Egypt rioted and engaged in anti-Christian violence at the proposition that a church be built in al-Our to honor the Copts decapitated by the Islamic State in Egypt, and after Muslims rioted and engaged in anti-Christian violence because Copts got a license to renovate one of their dilapidated churches in Gala’ village, Muslims are now attacking and preventing Christians from meeting in one of their homes to worship and pray.

Mark Durie: ‘A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross’

by Mark Durie, February 21, 2015

This post is a analytical explanation of a film produced by Al-Hayat Media of the Islamic State,  which portrays the ritual slaughter of 21 Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya, in the film “A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross”.  

Indented, italicized text is commentary by Mark Durie.

Asterisk indicates words from the film, either in the form of titles or sub-titles, or as narration.   

This is Part 2 of a pair of posts about this film.  Part 1 is Bearing the cross: a letter to the Islamic State.  

This post has also appeared on Lapido Media.

New Martyrs of Libya added to the Coptic Synaxarium

COPTIC ORTHODOX CHURCH of ALEXANDRIA
Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California and Hawaii
February 21, 2015 — h/t John

His Holiness Pope Tawadros II announced the inclusion of the 21 Coptic New Martyrs of Libya in the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church today. Every year, they will be commemorated on 8 Amshir in the Coptic calendar, which corresponds to 15 February in the Gregorian calendar, the same day as the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.

Axios, Axios, Axios!

This beautiful icon, which is also featured on the diocese front page, was drawn by Tony Rezk. May the Lord reward his talents.

Metropolitan Tikhon speaks at NY memorial for 21 Coptic martyrs

Excerpts from His Beatitude's memorable address at the Memorial held on Thursday, February 19, 2015

OCA.org - February 20, 2015

There are those who would overcome the world with weapons of violence, but this is not our way. 

There are those who cling to death and to sin in order to bring about more death and more evil, but this is not our way. 

There are those who blame religion for tragedies such as the one we mourn today, but they are blind to the reality that true believers become such only when their hearts are purified of sin and their lives filled with the light of the Resurrection. 

Let us, who stand fast in our faith in Christ and His eternal victory, remember that He alone has trampled on death by His own voluntary death. 

Let us, who are filled with the hope of the resurrection, give glory to God for the martyric witness of the 21 souls who now witness to this victory. 

And let us, who each struggle in our own way to remain faithful to God, give example in our own lives of those things which we hold dear—Peace, rather than violence; love, rather than hate; and forgiveness, rather than revenge.

You may read the full text here.

AXIOS! Metropolitan Tikhon!

Islamic State: “Great Reward” for Killing Coptic Christians

How the Islamic State justifies the killing of all Christians anywhere, in the context of collective punishment. 

by Raymond Ibrahim, February 13, 2015

Some of the 21 Coptic Christians executed by the Islamic State in Libya

The following excerpt from the Islamic State captures well the perverse logic that its many members and even more sympathizers operate on.  It recently appeared in an Islamic State report explaining why the jihadis already did... execute 21 Coptic Christian workers abducted in (post-”Arab Spring”) Libya.   The justification begins by positioning the 2010 Islamic raid on the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Iraq — where nearly 60 Christian worshippers were slaughtered (graphic pictures here) — as a response to the absurd allegations (based on Muslim projection) that the Coptic Church of Egypt was forcing — and killing — Muslim women to convert to Christianity.   In short, the Islamic State justifies the killing, not only of Coptic Christians, but all Christians anywhere, in the context of, yet again, “collective punishment.”  The excerpt follows, interspersed with my observations (emphases mine):

Names of the Martyrs and Statement on the Martyrdom of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya

COPTIC ORTHODOX CHURCH of ALEXANDRIA
Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California and Hawaii

His Grace Bishop Serapion, along with the clergy and laity of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, offers prayers, condolences, and sympathy to the families of the 21 Coptic martyrs of Libya who received the crown of eternal life on February 13, 2015.

We pray that the Lord may receive their pure souls in the Paradise of Joy and grant them eternal rest in the company of all of the holy saints who have pleased Him.

We encourage our children to share their names rather than continue to post the videos and photos of their martyrdom. Our Holy Church depicts martyrs as victorious in Her sacred iconography. Thus, it is more suitable to remember their names in our prayers as those who were victorious over the world and the evil in the world rather than to focus on the gruesome depiction of their martyrdom.

The Martyrs’ Names

The names of the martyrs are:

Raymond Ibrahim: 'Christian Slaughter in Libya'

ISIS escalates "Open Season" on Libya's Christians.

by Raymond Ibrahim, February 16, 2015

The disputed fate of the 21 Coptic Christians abducted in Sirte, Libya is now clear and visible for all to see on video: while holding them down, Islamic State members shove their fingers in the Christians’ eyes, crane their heads back, and slice away at their throats with knives—all in the name of Allah and Islam, all as the slaughtered call out on the “Lord Jesus Christ.”

Earlier, the BBC had falsely reported that 13 of these now slaughtered Copts were “released.” (Such downplaying of Muslim persecution of Christians is, of course, standard for the BBC.)

In the video, the lead executioner waves his dagger at the camera while boasting of the Islamic State’s savagery: “Oh people, recently you have seen us on the hills of as-Sham and Dabiq’s plain [Syrian regions], chopping off the heads that have been carrying the cross for a long time.  And today, we are on the south of Rome, on the land of Islam, Libya, sending another message.”

He adds: “We will fight you until Christ descends, breaks the cross and kills the pig” (all eschatological actions ascribed to the Muslim “Christ,” Isa).

As opposed to the Obama administration’s reactions to Islamic State beheadings of Americans and others—namely, strong assertions that such actions are not Islamic—Egyptian President Sisi responded to the slaughter of Egyptian citizens by immediately sending fighter jets to bomb Islamic State targets in Libya.

What did these Coptic Christians—or, as the Islamic State refers to them, “The Humiliated Followers of the Coptic Church”—do to deserve such treatment?  According to Catholic Pope Francis, “They were killed simply for the fact that they were Christians.  It makes no difference whether they be Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants. They are Christians!”

Far from being satisfied with the slaughter of these 21 Christians, the Islamic State is calling on Muslims to find and slaughter more Coptic Christians. (Copts make for the majority of Christians in Libya, having migrated there from neighboring Egypt to find work during the Gaddafi years; most of them are desperate to return but need aid from the Egyptian government to cross the Libyan desert.)

In its online English magazine Dabiq, after justifying the slaughter of the 21, the Islamic State concludes by asserting that “it is important for Muslims everywhere to know that there is no doubt in the great reward to be found on Judgment Day for those who spill the blood of these Coptic crusaders wherever they may be found.”

ISIS Beheadings: Hotwiring the Apocalypse One Christian Martyr At A Time

What the mass beheading of 21 Copts in Libya tells us about the Islamic State

by Timothy R. Furnish
Mahdi Watch, February 15, 2015

The Coptic Christians immediately before being martyred for Christ.

Major news outlets are reporting, today, the mass beheadings of 21 Coptic Christians by the Islamic State affiliate in Libya.

The Ottomans beheaded tens of thousands of Georgian

Christians who stubbornly, and heroically,

clung to their Christian faith.

In my 2005 Middle East Quarterly article, “Beheading in the Name of Islam,” I wrote that “the purpose of terrorism is to strike fear into the hearts of opponents in order to win political concession[s].”  Then I went on to spend much of the article explicating the legitimately Islamic roots (Qur’anic rubrics, precedents by Muhammad, examples from Islamic history, exegesis by Muslim scholars) of decapitating  “non-believers”—especially Christians, the primary political and military adversaries of Islamic expansion over the last 14 centuries.

The Islamic State has upped the ante with its regular beheadings of Christians by IS central and, now, its far-flung branches.  Seen in light of incessant calls for recruits, and even more vociferous citations of apocalyptic hadiths—both of which are clearly explained in the many issues of “Dabiq” magazine—I now think that ISIS cares not one whit about political concessions.  Rather, it chops off Christians’ heads for three primary reasons: 1) to reinforce its literalist Islamic credentials;  2) to win over young Muslims, particularly men, and persuade them of Islamic State’s power and dedication; and 3) to provoke the “Christian” West, particularly the United States (the world’s most populous Christian nation), into deploying ground troops—which ISIS is certain it will defeat, based on the group’s adherence to this eschatological hadith.

Kerry advocates for Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo

The Obama administration is obviously deeply compromised by its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and is doing all it can to keep the MB poised to return to power in Egypt. The Brotherhood continues its persecution of Coptic Christians, and its drive to institute sharia law in Egypt. The issue is not whether the MB is linked to ISIS as the article below reports, but what the MB has always stood for, and what it actually did when it came to power in Egypt. Banners like the one shown above were widely seen during the June 30 demonstrations last year which led to the Egyptian military removing Morsi and the MB from power. 

Kerry seeks to nudge Egypt's new president toward reforms on Cairo visit

by James Rosen, Fox News — June 22, 2014

CAIRO –  In a hastily-organized trip marked by extraordinarily tight security, Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Egypt on Sunday, embarking on a weeklong tour of Middle Eastern and European capitals where he will try to rally support for the embattled central government in Iraq.

But as pressing as the Iraq crisis is, threatening to wreak further havoc on the volatile region and disrupt global oil supplies, Kerry's agenda in Egypt was already stacked with pressing bilateral issues he could scarcely afford to ignore.

Hundreds of Egyptian women and girls kidnapped, forced into Islam, claims report

Obama administration remains silent on Muslim persecution of Christians in Egypt, sends Kerry to Cairo to advocate on behalf of Muslim Brotherhood, which continues to target Coptic Christians, as documented in this report.

by Jack Ellis, Fox News — June 20, 2014

Fifteen-year-old Amira Hafez Wahim slipped out of the Christian church in Luxor, Egypt, where she had attended services with her mother in February, promising to dash to a nearby store and return quickly.

Five months later, she has not been seen since, although her parents immediately suspected a 28-year-old Muslim man named Yasser Mahmoud, who had tried to kidnap her before, had succeeded this time.  When her father went to the Civil Status Authority for a copy of her birth certificate, his fears were confirmed: Her name had been changed and she was now listed as Muslim.

Amira is one of approximately 550 Coptic Christian girls and women who have disappeared in Egypt over the last three years, according to a report from the Egyptian Association of Victims of Abduction and Enforced Disappearances.

Ebnar Louis, the Cairo activist who founded the association in 2010, said police are typically indifferent to reports of missing girls.

“We file an official police report, but it is often ignored,” Louis told the humanitarian think tank Atlantic Council.

The reasons behind this alleged police indifference are unclear. It could be individual sectarian bias, inadequate resources and funding, or plain incompetence.

The report concluded that many of the missing females were abducted by Salafi Muslims and forced to convert to Islam and marry their captors once estranged from their families. It found the abductions increased after secular strongman Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011 and replaced by Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Mohammed Morsi. Although Morsi was in turn ousted by the military nearly a year ago, the abductions have continued.

'Every Friday is a Day of Death' for Christians in Cairo

International Christian Concern — April 23, 2014 ICC Note: The situation in Egypt continues to deteriorate for the nation's Christians. As systematic kidnappings of Christians plagues the Minia region to its south, reports confirm the brutal murder of a Christian woman by Muslim Brotherhood radicals in Cairo. Viciously stabbed to death, Mary Sameh George was murdered for hanging a cross from her review mirror. The mob responsible for her death set fire to Mary's car shortly after taking her life, sending a message of repression and violence to Christians local to Ain Shams. 04/22/2014 Egypt (GlobalDispatch) - A shocking new report details an Islamic mob of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt attacking and murdering a Christian woman for having a cross hanging on her car mirror. The report on Monday chronciles eyewitness account of the beating, stabbing, and shooting death of Mary Sameh George in Cairo on March 28. “Every Friday the supporters of Muslim Brotherhood organize a march after Friday prayer in Ain Shams,” the witness told the International Christian Concern (ICC). Identified only as Wahid, he says that “On this Friday afternoon, violent clashes took place between the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the security forces during their march.”

The Ultimate Source of Islamic Hate for Infidels

by Raymond Ibrahim — CBN News — April 15, 2014

Who is ultimately responsible for the ongoing attacks on Christians and their churches throughout the Islamic world?

Focusing on one of the most obvious nations where Christians are regularly targeted—Egypt’s Coptic Christians—one finds that the “mob” is the most visible and obvious culprit.  One Copt accused of some transgression against Muslim sensibilities—from having relations with a Muslim woman, to ruining a Muslim man’s shirt—is often enough to prompt Muslim mobs to destroy entire Christian villages and their churches.

Recently, for example, after her cross identified Mary Sameh George as a Christian, a pro-Muslim Brotherhood mob attacked, beat, and slaughtered her.

However, a recent Arabic op-ed titled “Find the True Killer of Mary” looks beyond the mob to identify the true persecutor of Christians in Egypt. According to it:

Those who killed the young and vulnerable Mary Sameh George, for hanging a cross in her car, are not criminals, but rather wretches who follow those who legalized for them murder, lynching, dismemberment, and the stripping bare of young Christian girls—without every saying “kill.”  [Islamic cleric] Yassir Burhami and his colleagues who announce their hate for Christians throughout satellite channels and in mosques—claiming that hatred of Christians is synonymous with love for God—they are the true killers who need to be tried and prosecuted…  The slayers of Mary Sameh are simply a wretched mob, with the body of a bull but the brain of a worm.  It’s not the puppets on the string who need punishing, but rather the mastermind who moves the puppets with his bloody fingers behind closed curtains that needs punishing.

One fact certainly validates this Arabic op-ed’s assertions: the overwhelming majority of attacks on Christians in Egypt and other Muslim nations—including the slaughter of Mary Sameh George—occur on Friday, the one day of the week that Muslims congregate in mosques for communal prayers and to hear sermons.

The significance of this fact can easily be understood by analogy: what if Christians were especially and consistently violent to non-Christian minorities on Sunday—right after they got out of church?  What would that say about what goes on in Christian churches?

What does it say about what goes on in Muslim mosques?

‘Milking’ Egypt’s Christian Copts Dry

Even remote Coptic monastery under attack from Muslim raiders.

by Raymond Ibrahim — April 4, 2014

The Board of Inquiry in Cairo monitoring the “sectarian violence that continues to cross Egypt after the overthrow of President Morsi, has documented in a report released on Tuesday, March 25 the endemic forms of violence and abuse that continue to be perpetrated against Coptic Christians in many parts of the country, particularly in the governorates of Luxor, Sohag and Aswan.”  According to this report, “reference is made to abductions [almost always for ransom], expropriation of houses, shops looted where Egyptian Copts continue to be targeted victims.”

In other words, Egypt’s Christians are increasingly being seen and treated, in the words of some early caliphs, as “milk camels” to be milked dry of their money and possessions. (Crucified Again, p. 200)

Even the most remote, modest, and apolitical Copts are being targeted so.  Late last month, Coptic activists in Egypt called on the Interior Ministry and its organs in the Fayum district to move and rescue the monks, workers, and visitors of the ancient Monastery of Saint Makarius, which is located in the desert between Alexandria and Cairo.

Coptic Woman ‘Martyred for the Cross’ — ‘Body Torn’

The early 21st century is the time of the 'Third Jihad' (See Islam 101 for a good overview of the first two jihads), and we are seeing an increasing number of New Martyrs being killed because of their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and God. Here is another account of one of these Neo-Martyrs, the handmaiden of God Mary, whose murderers targeted her because she had a cross hanging from the rearview mirror of her car.

Think on this the next time you get behind the wheel, and see the cross dangling from your own rearview mirror.


Coptic Woman ‘Martyred for the Cross’ — ‘Body Torn’
by Raymond Ibrahim — March 29, 2014

Mary, the latest Christian martyr to be killed in Egypt

On his Twitter account, Coptic Bishop Raphaeil, who also serves as Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Coptic Christian Church, just wrote:

Oh how lucky you are, Mary, you who are beloved of Christ.  They tore your body because of the Cross.  Yet they offered you the greatest service and gave you a name of honor as one who attained the crown of martyrdom.

The bishop also quoted Christ in the Bible, “Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service” (John 16:2).

Mary was killed during clashes between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian police, when the former, whipped into a frenzy after Friday mosque prayers, attacked a Coptic church, including by opening fire on it.  Along with Mary, three others were killed.

Eyewitnesses confirmed that she was targeted when Brotherhood rioters “noticed that she had a small cross dangling from the rear-view mirror of her car.”

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood supporters attack church, four dead

by Raymond Ibrahim — March 29, 2014

Among other forms of “retaliatory terrorism,” some 80 Christian churches were attacked in Egypt immediately after the June 30 Revolution, which saw the ousting of Muslim Brotherhood president Morsi.

And now that Egypt has sentenced to death hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters for the widespread terror they launched on the nation after the people’s revolution, the Brotherhood and its supporters are, once again, retaliating by attacking Coptic Christian minorities and their churches.

Egypt: Jizya-vigilantes target Christian minorities

by Raymond Ibrahim, Jihad Watch — March 13, 2014

In the al-Nafura region of Asyut, Egypt, an increasingly common scene took place earlier this month.

Isaac Eli—a Coptic Christian—was abducted under threat of gunfire.

According to sources, four “unknown persons” armed with automatic weapons came upon the Coptic wood merchant while he was working in front of his home, coerced him into their car, and sped away.

Later, one of his relatives received a phone call demanding a hefty ransom to release the Christian man: 500,000 Egyptian pounds—the equivalent of approximately $72,000 USD, an exorbitant sum for any resident in Upper Egypt.

Such scenarios—Coptic children or adults abducted at gunpoint and held (and sometimes killed or forced to convert to Islam) by “unknown persons” in exchange for money—are on the rise in Egypt (see here, here, here, here, and here for some recent examples).