A Coptic woman has lost her appeal of what human rights activists call a false conviction for blaspheming Islam and was sentenced, on June 15, to six months in an Egyptian prison.
The appellate court ruling shocked the Christian woman, 25-year-old Demyana Abd al-Nour, her family and human rights advocates. As Al-Nour fled the country last year, the ruling practically guarantees that she will spend the rest of her life in exile from Egypt.
Al-Nour originally had been sentenced to pay a fine of 100,000 Egyptian pounds (US$14,270), an exorbitant amount that her family could not pay. The judge replaced the fine with the prison sentence. Her father said she was devastated by the decision. ‘She has-n’t done anything wrong to deserve this. This sentence has ruined her future’, he said.
