The phenomenon of kidnapping wealthy Copts and blackmailing them to pay ransom has become a dominant trend since the January 25th Revolution.

Qena’s City of Naj’ Hammādī in Upper Egypt witnessed a number of incidents involving Copts and attempts to steal their money and wealth.

The crimes continued to increase and the number kidnapped reached 36 individuals, including 34 people from Naj’ Hammādī, one from Dishnā and one from Qena. Money paid as ransom to the kidnappers released the people of Naj’ Hammādī.

The incident pushed Naj’ Hammādī's Bishop Kyrillos to hold a press conference on the occasion of the Coptic Christmas celebration, Jan. 7, to bring attention to the number of kidnappings that have targeted Copts and to pressure security forces to stop the phenomenon.

In his report that followed the press conference, Ahmad ꞌAdlī writes that while mosques stand next to churches and in a lot of areas of the city they almost adjoin and almost half of the city's population are Copts, while the other half are Muslims, business life has then been organized in such way that Copts open their shops on Fridays while Muslims close theirs, and on Sundays it is the other way around.

This atmosphere of good relationships has been disturbed by these abductions, which caused great concern to Bishop Kyrillos. He commented that as soon as the Governor of Qena ꞌAdil Labīb and the Chief of Security Forces, Salāh Mazīd, heard of the intention to hold the press conference, both pressured him to postpone the conference; however, the Bishop stood his ground, according to Coptic sources.

According to Bishop Kyrillos, one cannot differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian in the city from their outer appearance. The veil, he said, is not limited to Muslim women only, as many Christian women cover their hair. As for the men, they sit together at cafes conversing and chit-chatting at the end of a work day. Only houses may sometimes reveal the faith of the people: Christians erect crosses, while Muslims have annexed a niche for performance of their prayers in their houses.

The lawyer for the Naj’ Hammādī Coptic Orthodox Diocese, George Subhī, says that security sometimes refuses to file the cases as abduction and prefer to file them as cases of “missing persons”, although the police know that the kidnappers contact the families of the kidnapped asking for ransom. He added, that at many occasions the families have brought up the kidnappings after the authorities ignored the increasing abductions, which became a prevailing custom repeated every 15 days.

While Chief of Qena Security, Salāh Zāꞌid, comments that the cases of abduction are not based on the religious identity of the victims, but rather on the financial situation of the families, Dr. Nabīl ꞌAbd al-Fattāh from Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies argues that security authorities do not want to admit that they cannot impose security measures on a group of individuals that impose the rule of force merged with a religious discourse against Christians (Manār Fikrī and Fātmah Khamīs, al-Mūjaz, Jan. 7, p. 13). Read original text in Arabic.