Another Copt Punished for His Faith
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.
