By Heba Fahmy
CAIRO: Ten were arrested on Tuesday for posting a video believed to have incited the burning of churches in Imbaba, less than 24 hours after the woman, whose alleged detention in a church triggered deadly clashes, appeared in an online video.
The suspects, according to the Ministry of Interior, would be questioned for their involvement in the Imbaba violence, which left 12 dead and 240 injured.
Other suspects previously detained for their involvement in the clashes were referred to the Emergency State Security Court, the prime minister’s media adviser Ahmed El-Samman said in a TV interview late Monday.
El-Samman said that the decision was made by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, citing complications in the case and the numerous parties involved.
The decision came following a meeting between Sharaf, Head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces Hussein Tantawy and a number of ministers, in which they discussed the recent sectarian tensions, the security vacuum and the media’s role in easing the tension.
Twenty-three suspects and eyewitnesses were arrested Monday in Imbaba, in addition to 190 arrested on Sunday for their involvement in the clashes and the burning of the Virgin Church, including a man linked to the woman at the center of the events.
Twenty-five-year-old Abir Fakhry — the woman who was allegedly held in Marmina church for converting to Islam, igniting the deadly clashes as ultra conservative Muslims tried to “free her” — admitted that she converted to Islam and was held by the church against her will, in a YouTube video posted on Monday.
Fakhry called on Tantawy and Sharaf to release all those detained because of their involvement in the Marmina clashes.
She also called on Pope Shenouda to “let her live her life [as a Muslim] without being pursued.”
Fakhry said that she converted to Islam on Sept. 23, 2010, and escaped from her hometown in Assiut along with her daughter. She left her Christian husband and family behind. She was romantically involved with Yassin Thabit, the man she said had guided her to Islam.
She said that a Muslim acquaintance from her hometown had helped her find a place to stay, but eventually told her parents where she was in exchange for money. Fakhry was then taken back by members of her family to Assuit, who then handed her over to the Church.
She wasn’t allowed to leave the church and was transferred from one monastery to the other since March 1, until she settled in a bishop’s house next to Marmina church in Imbaba, she added.
“The doors and windows were closed shut,” she said.
She stressed that she was treated well by the church and wasn’t tortured or forced to convert back to Christianity. They merely talked to her, in a bid to convince her to return to her religion, she said.
Fakhry said that she called Thabit and asked him to rescue her. He called the police who in turn called her back. An officer with State Security Investigations (SSI) called her, but then she was scared when he asked she was.
However in a phone interception with “Fel Midan” program on Al-Tahrir channel later on Monday, Fakhry denied that she called anyone for help.
“Who would I call,” she questioned TV presenter Mahmoud Saad.
When the clashes started, Fakhry said that a female church worker who was taking care of her opened the doors and let her go. At the time she left the area, there was no gunfire, she added.
She was currently in a safe place and no body knew her whereabouts.
During her phone interview with Saad, she was vague about her relationship with Thabit but eventually said they weren’t married as she was still legally married to her Christian husband.
She added that she had filed a divorce case after she converted to Islam and was awaiting the court’s verdict.
“I’m still not divorced from my first husband, so I couldn’t marry [Thabit],” Fakhry said.
She added that she agreed with Thabit to get married after her divorce was finalized.
According to the official news portal egynews.net, and Al-Ahram daily, the Family Court in Menoufia governorate had adjourned Fakhry’s divorce trial to May 29. Court officials also said that her husband had attended the first trial hearing in March and agreed to go through with the divorce.
Bishop Filapoteer Gamil of Giza accused Fakhry of lying.
“How do we even know that this is in-fact the real Abir who ignited the Imbaba clashes,” Gamil questioned.
He added that it didn’t make sense that the Virgin Church in Assiut would send Fakhry to a different governorate, Cairo, for no specific reason.
Gamil added that Fakhry admitted that she wasn’t Thabit’s wife, which refutes the Salafis’ claims.
He said that assuming her story was true, the Salafis should have reported the incident to the police and let them deal with the issue through legal methods, instead of storming Marmina church.
However, a spokesperson for some Salafi groups, Abdel Moneim Al-Shahhat, denied Gamil’s claims and said that the Salafis merely gathered at the church, so security forces could come and investigate the issue.
He told DNE that Thabit had called on the Salafis praying in the mosque to help save the Muslim woman, who was held captive in the church.
Al-Shahhat added that they had to comply, otherwise they would have been considered “contemptible and vile”.
Fakhry and Thabit were bonded by a common law marriage, which is permissible in Islam, according to El-Shahhat.
He added that when a Coptic woman converts to Islam, she has to be separated from her Coptic husband, according to Islamic rulings.
Amna Nosseir, Islamic studies and philosophy professor at Al-Azhar University, strongly disagreed with Al-Shahhat.
“This woman is a traitor to her husband and a traitor to her home and daughter,” Nosseir told DNE.
“This woman had a relationship with a man while she was still married to her Coptic husband,” she said. “This relationship is forbidden and condemned by all religions. She is unworthy of the blood shed and the violation of the sacred [churches] that took place in her name,” she added.
“Protecting our country is more important than any woman … protecting our fellow human beings is more sacred than any woman,” she added. –Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan
