A father and daughter who fled Egypt for Syria after spending two-and-a-half years in hiding for becoming Christians have arrived in France and applied for asylum there April 20, human rights advocates said.
Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary, 58, had become the target of Islamic ill will in Egypt after he tried to change the religious affiliation on his national identification card from Muslim to Christian.
He and his daughter, 17-year-old Dina Mo’otahssem, arrived in Paris from Syria on March 30 after having fled to Damascus on Feb. 22 in the wake of the revolution in Egypt that deposed then-President Hosni Mubarak. The Jan. 25–Feb. 11 protests in Egypt also weakened the Ministry of the Interior, an agency that had harassed El-Gohary and prevented him from leaving the country.
El-Gohary had fled to Syria because it was both the fastest and the easiest way to get out of Egypt, but he said he also feared Islamic opposition to converts in Syria and growing political unrest in Damascus. “When we got to the French embassy in Syria, we were so scared because of what was happening in Syria at the time,” he said. Eventually El-Gohary and his daughter hope to gain a visa to the United States and then immigrate. (CDN)
Share with others: