Background:

It was reported that the police arrested several Christian men because of the absence of a license for selling films, but this is unjust, according to Maurice Ṣādiq, a Coptic Christian human rights lawyer. These men have been working in sales of films for a long time, but now all of a sudden they are taken into custody because they are selling religious material. One bad Muslim encouraged a group of Muslims to hate all Christians, so that he could get Victor Yūnān, a Christian, arrested for selling videos concerning biblical material, Ṣādiq says.

Ṣādiq believes that the police were helping the Islamists when this Christian was arrested. He believes that Christians are not allowed to have voices according to the Islamists groups and that the police want to prevent the spread of Christianity. Yūnān was allegedly arrested because he had no “permission” for selling such videos, and he apparently needed this permission but according to Ṣādiq, he had been working without it for forteen years.

Side A:

Ṣādiq says the government does not want permission from anyone who works with videos and has never asked for it. Even though it is the law, it is neglected, but for some reason they wanted this permission this time. Ṣādiq argues that they only went to the Christian bookstores to check up on the licenses, and only Christians were arrested. There are many Muslims who are selling “bad videos” as Ṣādiq puts it, but they are not accounted for.

The Church produces Christian films and these are controlled by Pope Shinūda III, such films include the story of Adam and Eve, biblical theology and the prophets. This idea, however is allegedly not accepted by Muslims because they are said to be scared of converting to Christianity so that they could “escape from Islam”. This is apparently the problem in Egypt according to Ṣādiq. There were allegedly 79 films confiscated from Yūnān.

According to Ṣādiq, the solution to the problem is that people need to get the right to speak. Pope Shinūda allegedly spoke with the Minister of Interior (1993-1997), Ḥassan al-ʾĀlfī, regarding the case of Victor Yūnān. Al-ʾĀlfī had said that it is the law that anyone who works in this industry must have a license, and any video must be permitted by the government not by the pope. Shinūda argued that the films were concerned with the Coptic Christians and the government is not specialized in this area, and should thus leave it to the church.