The words of His Grace the great Imam Dr. Ahmed Tayeb Sheikh of Al-Azhar very precious during the speech he has delivered at the opening of the New Cathedral of the New Administrative Capital. He assured that there is nothing in Islamic Sharia that prevents building new churches and the majority of churches in Egypt were built under Muslim rulers. We thank him for what he said since he represents 1.5 billion Muslim people. However, we don t accept what he said that Islamic state is the guarantee for all churches. In fact, we live under a civil state and I wanted to hear from him that the Egyptian state is the guarantee and the protector for all churches and mosques. The state of citizenship can not restrain to a specific religion to protect the other religion. In that case, we are trying to return the Copts to be Dhimis under the protection of Islamic Caliphate. Such words give him the power of giving and preventing at the same time, which contradicts with the modern understanding of a civil state.

As I was a judge and a head of a court of personal status, I experienced thousands of Christian families seeking divorce because of several problems. However I can t give a number about how many of them even if some people may claim they are over 100,000 cases. The church promised to prepare a personal status law to solve many problems, especially as many women resorted to converting to Islam in order to get rid of their spouses.

Perhaps, as President al-Sisi said yesterday at a graduation ceremony for students of military colleges that the war on Egypt comes from inside. There are people who want to topple this country and those have launched 21 thousand rumors in three months. Such a number in a country that is working on economic reform and democracy as well as strong state institutions may have negative effect. We are well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood are the main beneficiary of that evil action since they seek destruction of Egypt.

Over the last week and immediately after the Easter holiday, six Christian girls disappeared and several stories about their disappearance started to be heard. If the girl is 18 years old, she immediately converts into Islam and if not, her disappearance continues till she is 18 year old. Meanwhile, her family suffers on daily basis not knowing if their daughter is dead or alive. At the end, they know that their daughter is converted into Islam and is married to a Muslim man. Indeed, the freedom of belief should not be negotiable, but the law should not serve the majority against the minority. First of all, we should answer the question: Is there freedom of faith for Christians in Egypt? I am surprised that Al-Azhar accepts the conversion of Christian boys or girls into Islam, which is a violation of the law, because the Civil Code does not allow the minors to decide on their own unless he or she reaches twenty-one years old. Moreover, the minors can decide on their own when they reach 18 with the permission of the guardian.

In this article I mention several points that reveal problems of the Coptic Christians in Egypt. Christians don’t have freedom to build churches. In Galaa village, Minya, the governor couldn’t rebuild an old church before he accepts 6 conditions of the Salafis. There is no Christian governor in 27 Egyptian governorates and there is no Christian director of security. This could be because of incompetence or the lack of or confidence in Christians. There is no Christian president of university in Egypt or Christian editor-in-chief of a national newspaper. Christians don’t preside over national banks and can’t work as obstetrics and gynaecology professor. Egyptian courts don’t accept Christian witnesses against Muslims. Holy Mass is not recorded in public TV on Sundays.