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August 16, 2024
Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo is behind bars for something many do every day: he posted on Facebook.
Abdo, a Yemini asylum seeker, has been in prison for two-and-a-half years because after converting from Islam to Christianity he began discussing theological matters in a private Facebook group with other recent converts to Christianity.
This week, the Alliance Defending Freedom International, the religious liberty advocacy group representing Abdo, announced the persecuted believer has declared a hunger strike in a recent letter sent to his wife and family.
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Abdo was reportedly arrested by Egyptian authorities in 2021 for participating in a Facebook group, answering questions for and fostering conversations with people who had converted from Islam to Christianity. All of this happened as Abdo was living in Egypt after registering with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as an asylum seeker who fled Yemen after becoming a Christian.
The bogus charges the 54-year-old believer is facing, according to Amnesty International, include “joining a terrorist group” and “defamation of the Islamic religion.”
In the letter, originally written in Arabic before being translated into English by ADF, Abdo expressed how much he loves and misses his wife and family, writing, “I pray to God that he will protect you and make you successful in all your situation[s] of your life. And my prayer is that God will unite us together soon.”
He went on to inform his loved ones that he has started a hunger strike over the persecution he’s facing.
“I started today, on the 7 of August 2024, a partial strike,” he reportedly wrote. “And I refuse to take treatment from the person who is responsible for healthcare in the prison. And I requested from him to tell the management in the prison that I am doing so. I am going to increase my strike in stages, until I make the strike complete during the coming weeks. And the reason of my strike [is] that they arrested me without any legal justification. They did not convict me for any violation of the law. And they did not set me free during my remand imprisonment, which was ended [eight] months ago.”
Abdo was not the only Christian arrested in the Facebook ordeal. Nour Girgis was also charged for participating in the Facebook group, “Al Abareen,” which is translated, “To cross over.”
Girgis, for his part, has been accused of leading the Facebook group and was charged with blaspheming Islam and discussing religious conversions in an online forum.
“The freedom of religion and belief is an unalienable human right, worthy of the highest protection,” Samuel Brownback, former ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, said recently. “What has happened to these two men in Egypt is unacceptable and an undeniable violation of their right to worship freely. Hostility towards religion is becoming a global problem, and advocates for freedom must continue to speak out against these injustices that plague religious minorities, including in Egypt. These two men must be released and exonerated.”
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