War on Christianity in Egypt > Christian scholar gets 5 years hard labor in Egypt

 

Another Copt Punished for His Faith

Mar 6, 2026 4:00 pm By Hugh Fitzgerald9 Comments

In Egypt, which is often described, most inaccurately, as an “American ally,” the authorities have just sentenced a Christian — that is, a Copt — to five years at hard labor. Dr. Augustino Samaan, a Coptic researcher on religion, was charged with having committed the crime of “blasphemy,” for supposedly “deriding Islam.” More on this latest display of Muslim savagery can be found here: 

Egypt Sentences Christian Scholar to Five Years’ Imprisonment with Hard Labor

by Uzay Bulut, PJ Media, February 26, 2026:

The Egyptian government continues to disproportionately arrest Coptic Christians on “blasphemy” charges. Dialogue or debate regarding religious beliefs, criticism of Islam, or the Egyptian government often brings arrest, torture, and imprisonment.

Dr. Augustinos Samaan, 37, is a Coptic researcher arrested by masked special-forces officers on Oct. 1, 2025, for “derision of Islam” under Egypt’s “contempt of religion” laws. Samaan holds a Ph.D. in comparative religion and is engaged in Christian apologetics.

Through scholarly work and online educational content, Samaan peacefully discussed religious issues and responded to anti-Christian sentiment. These are all activities protected under international human rights law. Yet on January 3, Samaan was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with hard labor. He was also assaulted by other detainees.

The Organization Coptic Solidarity (CS) is campaigning for Dr. Samaan’s release.

During his detention, the officers confiscated his laptop, phone, books, and personal papers. Following national security investigations — an ordeal that reportedly included torture — he was initially charged with terrorism-related offenses. Prosecutors eventually amended the case to “contempt of religion” under Article 98(f) of the Penal Code.

The sentence was issued in a secret criminal trial without notification to his legal counsel or family, without public proceedings, and without granting the defense access to the case file or a meaningful opportunity to represent him….

The incredible tale of Dr. Samaan’s trial and punishment, without a single procedural protection, and instead a system, from the police who first picked him up to the trial judge who sentenced him, that is a travesty of justice, stacked against the Copt whose “blasphemy” appears to be nonexistent, since it is never described. Dr. Samaan is one of many Copts who are not stabbed or bludgeoned to death, but instead must endure the slow death of being confined inside an Egyptian prison, where fellow inmates, if Muslim, are likely to physically mistreat him for the crime of being a Christian. His lawyer, Saeed Fayez, was never given access to the case files, thus making a coherent defense impossible. Nor was his lawyer present during his two trials. He is reported as having endured torture from the police while in custody. And now, with no possibility of further appeal, without contact with his lawyer or with the outside world, he has been sentenced to five years at hard labor for a crime — “blasphemy” — he did not commit, and which has yet to be explained by the authorities. Five years at hard labor can be for some — depending on their physique — a death sentence.

There is only one way to make the Egyptian government call a halt to this judicial persecution of Dr. Samaan and other Copts. That is for the American government to use aid, or rather withholding aid, as a weapon. The U.S. currently provides Egypt with $1.5 billion in aid, most of it military in nature. The U.S. government makes an annual human rights assessment, and $225 million of that $1.5 billion can be withheld if the Egyptian government has not taken “sustained and effective” steps to improve its protection of freedom of expression and association, and strengthening the rule of law. Withholding that amount has clearly not been enough to change Egypt’s behavior — just look at what happened to Dr. Samaan.

President Trump should have Secretary Rubio explain to General El-Sisi, Egypt’s dictator, that no US aid, none, will be forthcoming until Egypt stops its persecution of the Copts, and that includes the Star Chamber proceedings which characterized the prosecutions of Dr Samaan and Said Abdelrazek. Egypt should provide security for Coptic churches and schools that it the past have been the subject of Muslim attacks. Finally, Copts on trial should have their lawyers given access to case files, and allowed to be present at every stage of the proceedings. These demands can be made privately, so as not to leave El-Sisi in a position of having to reject it publicly in order to be seen as “standing up to the Americans.”

Will El-Sisi comply? Oh, I think so. $1.5 billion is a most convincing argument.

War on Christianity > They razed the church with the Pastor and his wife in it; Inhuman slaughter by Fulani herdsmen

 

‘They Roasted the Pastor and His Wife Alive in the Church’

Feb 16, 2026 1:00 pm By Daniel Greenfield12 Comments

“The churches are always their main target.”

The David Horowitz Freedom Center spent a lot of time bringing attention to the Muslim genocide of Christians in Nigeria. Before his death, Charlie Kirk spread our work around, and the Trump administration fortunately listened. And yet it also unfortunately adapted a false narrative in which the tremendous genocide of Christians was just the work of the local Al Qaeda. And that’s simply not true. These are the broader work of the local Muslim ‘Fulani’ population.

This excellent account captures some of what’s really going on.

Driving through the vast, scorched landscape, I hear the words that have followed me all day. ‘They roasted the pastor and his wife alive in the church. We heard their screams.’

Bricks lie scattered in the scrub. Concrete blocks jut from the earth like jagged teeth. Roofs have collapsed inward.

And then come the churches.

Burned-out shell after burned-out shell. Crosses broken. Windows blown through. One has been gutted by fire, another reduced to rubble.

It’s as though someone has tried to erase every visible sign of Christianity from this land.

For more than two decades, this stretch of Nigeria’s Middle Belt – the faultline where the largely Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south – has convulsed in recurring waves of bloodshed…

In the face of all this, calling the violence here merely a ‘farmer–herder conflict’, as government officials try to do, begins to sound like a diplomatic euphemism. It’s true that land is in high demand and grazing routes are contested. But that explanation alone feels inadequate when you witness for yourself the ruins of so many churches – and hear the stories of so many slaughtered Christians.

We arrive in the village of Gwet, parking by a collection of abandoned houses, destroyed fields and another ruined church. In truth, we’re not exactly welcome. The people who committed these atrocities – Muslim Fulani herdsmen – can be seen in the distance: the new, unchallenged masters of this once devoutly Christian area.

Yes, Boko Haram attacks and kills Christians, but much like ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Hamas in Israel, or the Al Qaeda regime in Syria, t’s just the tip of the spear for the larger genocidal campaign by a Sunni Muslim group against another population.

The pattern has been identical across the years and locations. Night raids. Armed, baying men descending on sleeping Christian communities. Houses torched; men, women and children cut down or slaughtered in their beds; churches set ablaze. By dawn, whole settlements are smoking ruins.

‘Jonas’ is 29 years old. He cradles his metal machete like a comfort blanket. ‘For firewood,’ he says, ‘but also’, he adds, looking at the Fulani in the distance, ‘for protection.’ We stand in the blackened remains of his family home. This is the first time he’s dared to come back since May 16, 2023: the day his world was destroyed.

He starts to remember. Early that morning, Fulani families had been seen nearby gathering cattle and belongings, moving in unusually large numbers. Within hours they stormed his village screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ and calling the Christians living there infidels. They fired into homes, chased families out and burned everything they could. They were methodical in their savagery. ‘We were terrified,’ he tells me. ‘We ran and hid in the bush and then fled.’

Ten people once lived in his home: his parents, wife and younger brothers. They were farmers. Now the Fulani cattle graze the family’s field beyond their ruined church.

‘The churches are always their main target,’ he says. It is an attack at the heart of their faith…

In 48 blood-spattered hours between December 23 and Christmas Day, mobs attacked at least 17 rural communities in the Plateau areas of Bokkos and Barkin Ladi, murdering at least 200 and injuring 500 more. Although no group claimed responsibility, residents insist it was the Fulani.

They also insist the date was deliberate. In the days before the attacks, warnings had circulated: ‘Be careful how you celebrate Christmas – or you may not celebrate at all.’

There’s plenty more there and I encourage you to read all of it, but the bottom line is to remember this is not just ‘Al Qaeda’.

This is a genocidal campaign by a Muslim population against a Christian population. This is how Islam expands. Its borders are always red because they bleed with the blood of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and all non-Muslims.

It’s not just a matter of tracking down a few terrorists, it’s about facing the reality that this is what Islam is.

And it’s not just at work in Nigeria or in Africa, it’s at work in Europe and America.

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Nigeria: Muslims murder Christian pastor, his daughter, and her husband, wound their infant child with a machete

Feb 17, 2026 12:00 pm By Robert Spencer10 Comments

“Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60)

Pastor, Daughter and Son-in-Law Slain in Plateau State, Nigeria

Morning Star News, 

February 6, 2026:

ABUJA, Nigeria (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Fulani herdsmen last month killed a pastor, his daughter and her husband, leaving the couple’s 3-month-old baby with a machete wound, in Plateau state, Nigeria.

The Christian family was ambushed as they traveled on the Jos-Barkin Ladi highway to a village in Barkin Ladi County on Jan. 16, the Evangelical Missionary Society (EMS) of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) said in a statement.

The Rev. Bulus Madaki, an EMS worker, his daughter and son-in-law were slain in the attack, while the granddaughter suffered a machete cut on the head and was left to die but survived.

“In Nigeria, the gospel is often preached at the cost of blood and tears, the blood and tears of missionaries who choose to follow Christ no matter the price,” the EMS leaders stated.

Pastor Madaki had served at Janta 2 Mission Station in Zagun District Church Council (DCC) and was recently transferred to Gwol DCC; he was killed along the Kassa-Nding Bridge in Barkin Ladi County, they said.

“He was killed alongside his married daughter and son-in-law by killer Fulani herdsmen. They were on their way to his new mission station. They never arrived,” the leaders stated. “His granddaughter, a 3-month-old baby girl, survived the attack with a severe head injury. She now lives as an orphan, having lost her father, her mother, and her grandfather in a single, violent moment.”

The attack marks the harsh reality of missions in Nigeria, they stated.

“Missions in Nigeria is growing, but the danger that comes with it is both real, brutal and enduring,” they stated. “In spite of this attack, it is a sure evidence that we are winning and souls are being won to Christ through a tumultuous period.”…

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War on Christianity > Muslims capture 177 Christians from Nigerian churches

 

Nigeria: Muslims kidnap 177 Christians from churches during Sunday services

Jan 21, 2026 12:00 pm By Robert Spencer5 Comments

“As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, ‘When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks’ (Qur’an sura 47, verse 4)” — Al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance).

...177 abducted Christian worshippers in Kaduna

News Express, January 21, 2026:

The identities of the 177 persons kidnapped from ECWA Church and Cherubim and Seraphim Churches 1 and 2 at Kurmin Wali community in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State on Sunday have been revealed.

The list paints a harrowing picture of entire families taken away from their homes and places of worship, leaving the community traumatised and virtually empty of able-bodied residents.

The raid came barely a week after the same community paid N2.6 million ransom to secure the release of 20 residents previously abducted, Vanguard reliably gathered.

While government and security operatives denied the incident, a Police situation report obtained by Vanguard confirmed the attack occurred during church services.

The report stated that information was received at about 5:45pm, on Sunday, indicating that the assailants struck around 11:25am, firing sporadically and forcing worshippers to flee into the surrounding forest.

The situation report read: “Message received from DPO Kajuru indicates that on 18/01/2026 at about 1745hrs an information was received that same date at about 1125hrs, unspecified numbers of bandits armed with sophisticated weapons attacked ECWA church and Cherubim Serafim Church 2 at Kurmin Wali in Kajuru lga, The communities are yet to ascertain the number of worshipers kidnapped to unknown destination, the village is situated in a remote forest area, the DPO mobilized other sister security agencies and the military to the scene which cannot be accessed immediately due to bad road, concerted effort in collaboration with all stakeholders has been intensified to rescue the victims and possibly arrest the perpetrators, investigation has commenced”.

As of yesterday, the village was deserted. Those who escaped had fled to nearby communities to stay with relatives and friends.

Some who sustained injuries during the escape were reportedly still in shock, while poor network coverage and lost phones made it difficult to reach them for comment….

Nigeria: Gunmen kidnap more than 160 in church attack

DW, January 19, 2026:

A leader at Nigeria’s Christian Association said that 163 worshippers were kidnapped during Sunday services from two churches Kaduna state.

“The attackers came in numbers and blocked the entrance of the churches and forced the worshippers out into the bush,” Reverend Joseph Hayab, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria for the country’s north, said on Monday.

“The actual number they took was 172 but nine escaped, so 163 are with them,” he said.

A politician representing the area at state parliament, Usman Danlami Stingo, on Monday talked of three separate attacks during Sunday church services. He put the number of abducted at 168, according to the Associated Press.

A police ‌spokesperson told Reuters news agency that gunmen with “sophisticated weapons” attacked the two churches, but that police were still trying to confirm the number taken.

The attacks occurred in the village of Kurmin Wali, a largely Christian forest community. It is remote and difficult to reach due to bad roads, the police spokesperson said.

Police said troops and ⁠other security agencies had been deployed to the area and that efforts were under way to track the ‌abductors and rescue ‌the captives….