Every day, around the world, someone is forced to change their religion or is not allowed to change. Some recent examples:
- "A Muslim convert to Christianity filed suit against Egypt last week for refusing to legally recognize his change of religion, sparking a reactionary lawsuit by Muslim clerics and death threats against his lawyer. Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, 24, brought a case against Egypt’s interior ministry on Thursday (August 2) for rejecting his application to replace Islam with Christianity on his personal identification papers.....Though Egyptian law does not forbid conversion from Islam to Christianity, it provides no legal means to make the change. Converts to Christianity usually hide their identity to avoid torture and forced recantation at the hands of family members and security police."
- An Egyptian doctor in Saudi Arabia has been arrested, interrogated and prevented from returning to his home country due to his religion. "Dr. Mamdooh Fahmy, a surgeon at Albyaan Menfhoh Medical Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was removed from his position at the center six months ago, and has not been allowed to obtain another work permit because of his faith..." He refused the attempts of his coworkers to convert him to Islam, and was subsequently charged with being a missionary. He's lost his medical position, had his passport confiscated, and he can't leave the country.
- In Egypt, an administrative court ruled in April 2007 that a Christian who had converted to Islam could not convert back to Christianity. The court ruling stated: "Anyone who leaves his Christian religion in order not to return to it and enters the religion of Islam entirely of his own free will and without coercion is committed to its laws and principles, including not harboring any intentions to deny Islam or to leave it afterwards... Islam does not permit anyone who enters it of his own free will to leave it... for the sake of a particular aim or to change his religion as the wind changes direction..." Memri has a collection of commentaries on the ruling.
- "Fatah officials in Ramallah claimed over the weekend that Professor Sana al-Sayegh, who teaches at Palestine University in Gaza City, was kidnapped by Hamas militiamen who forced her to convert to Islam against her will. The officials said the president of the university, Dr. Zaher Khail, had assisted Hamas in kidnapping the professor. They added that senior officials in the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh played a major role in forcing her to convert to Islam."
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