So I wanna be careful with this story and what has been confirmed and what hasn’t. Here’s what the Associated Press is saying happened in Egypt to Christians:
Police have used tear gas to disperse an angry mob of Muslims approaching Christian homes in southern Egypt.
The Friday clashes injured four policemen and seven of the Muslim villagers. Police have made eight arrests.
The trouble in the Moheidat district south of the ancient city of Luxor began when Muslim villagers suspected that a Christian teenager who allegedly converted to Islam was being held captive by her family as punishment. Her relatives deny the charge.
So, what is interesting is that there is an alternative story on social media that makes is sound like the AP is taking the Muslim side of the argument.
Today in #Luxor #Egypt: a Muslim zealot gets infatuated by a beautiful Coptic girl, spreads a rumor she converted, now she's being kidnapped pic.twitter.com/rBG0RfcqlE
— AlyaaGad AfhamTVأفهم (@AlyaaGad) March 25, 2017
This is a rather influential account, but it appears she took the image from this video, which claims that a Muslim is demanding a Christian family deliver a teenage girl to him to be married, saying that she has converted to Islam. They supposedly refused, and he got a Muslim mob to attack them, which brought out the police:
Here’s another video:
Muslims attack Christian homes in #Luxor to demand a minor Christian girl they believe has turned to Islam and the girl and her family deny pic.twitter.com/gwhRMoGyFn
— علماني مصري (@Human_Secular) March 25, 2017
The translated tweets from this account, and the website at the link they post, supports that narrative of the story as well:
But all of this has to be taken with a grain of salt. While this is in line with some of the terrible stories we’ve heard of oppression of Christians in the Middle East, the internet is notorious for stories being exaggerating and misreported.