An Egyptian court just charged three teenage boys with blasphemy and sentenced them to five years in prison after they made a video mocking Islam and decrying the beheadings carried out by ISIS against Christians in the region.

The boys were between the ages of 15 and 17 at the time the video was filmed. The video was never shared publicly, but after the boys’ neighbors saw the video they turned them in to the police.

This is an outrageous human rights violation and an example of Christian persecution in Egypt.

Please sign this urgent petition to Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and to the President of the UN Council on Human Rights Mr. Choi Kyong-lim.

In this petition, we ask Egypt’s President to take concrete steps to ensure the protection of Christians in the region: we ask him to first ensure that the sentences against these boys are commuted, and we also ask him to ultimately work towards changing the blasphemy laws in Egypt.

Egypt’s blasphemy law allows for a wide breadth of interpretation, and the law has been increasingly used over the last few years to persecute Christians living in the region. The law in question, Article 98, states:

Confinement for a period of not less than six months and not exceeding five years, or a fine of not less than five hundred pounds and not exceeding one thousands pounds shall be the penalty inflicted on whoever make use of religion in propagating, either by words, in writing, or in any other means, extreme ideas for the purpose of inciting strife, ridiculing or insulting a heavenly religion or a sect following it, or damaging national unity.

Todd Daniels, a middle-east expert with International Christian Concern, explains that this situation “represents yet another case of how Egypt continues to bend to the weight of extremist ideology." In an email to The Christian Post, Daniels wrote, "Egypt has pervasive persecution that continues to occur not only on the societal level but also in the judiciary.”

We must act now to let Egypt know that the international community is aware of these human rights violations and we will be watching to ensure that these boys are released.

Please join us in putting pressure on Egypt to release these boys and to change their blasphemy laws so that Egyptian Christians are ensured religious freedom.

If we don't act now, these boys will spend the next five years of their lives behind bars.

---

Further resources:

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/02/27/egyptian-court-sentences-three-christian-teens-for-insulting-islam/

http://www.christianpost.com/news/5-egyptian-christian-children-arrested-for-blasphemy-after-recording-prayer-video-that-mocked-isis-138752/