Coptic teacher Gad Yousef Younan and his students mocked ISIS in a short clip Gad filmed. After a villager found and shared the clip, the group was variously imprisoned, fined, bailed, and then forced into hiding and exile.
Khamis Younan (Gad's brother)
In April 2015, Coptic Christian schoolteacher Gad Yousef Younan was arrested and charged under Egypt’s blasphemy law along with four teenage students (Mueller Atef Edward, Albert Ashraf Hanna, Bassem Amgad Hanna, and Clinton Maged Youssef). Gad had recorded a video in which the boys mocked ISIS, performing an imaginary beheading as they professed allegiance to Allah. By some accounts, Gad had posted the video to Facebook, and by another, he had lost his phone’s memory card, which allowed the discovery of the video. In any case, the video surfaced online and caused the arrest.
“My brother didn’t intend to insult the Islamic religion. He is a respected man and all people love and respect him. He is very polite and deals with all people in a good way, he has a good relationship with the other teachers and his students in the school, and he is characterised by his good manners.” - Khamis, Gad’s brother
In the wake of the controversy, Muslim protesters gathered in Gad’s home village, triggering riots in which Christian shops were damaged and the Coptic residents intimidated and sometimes assaulted. In response, after police got the situation under control, community leaders organized a “reconciliation meeting” in which, for his own good and that of the village, Gad was banished. His wife and two children accompanied him as he left.
“For three days we were living in terror and panic. We stayed in our homes and our children didn’t go to their schools. We also couldn’t go to church to attend the masses for [Coptic] Holy Week.” - Ashraf Salah, computer repair shop owner in Gad’s home village
In December 2015, Gad was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, but he was shortly released on bail as he awaited an appeal of the case. Two months later, the students in the video were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, except Clinton, who was to spend five years in a “juvenile facility” instead. The boys fled Egypt in April 2016.
Selected Blasphemy Cases - United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Egypt: Reverse Blasphemy Sentences Against Christian Children - Human Rights Watch
Egypt sentences ‘anti-Islam’ teens to 5 years - World Watch Monitor
Video mocking IS causes riots in Egypt - World Watch Monitor
Community ‘justice’ expels Copts from their homes - World Watch Monitor
Coptic boys on bail, anti-Islam charges pending - World Watch Monitor
Egypt: Coptic teens tried for video ‘mimicking jihadists’ - World Watch Monitor
Egypt has a general blasphemy law that prohibits disparaging “the heavenly religions.” While the law ostensibly targets no religion in particular, in practice it is usually used against religious minorities and those who blaspheme Islam. Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority has particularly borne a disproportionate weight of blasphemy prosecutions. In addition to the relatively aggressive efforts of Egyptian authorities to prosecute such cases, blasphemers and atheists must also contend with social pressure, coercion, and the risk of vigilante violence.