Report: Young Christian Woman Brutally Murdered by Egyptian Islamists

A young Coptic Christian woman was dragged out of her car, then brutally beaten and stabbed to death by an Egyptian Islamist mob on Friday.

According to a report in CNS News by Patrick Goodenough, eyewitnesses said 25 year-old Mary Sameh George was apparently targeted by the Islamists because of a cross that hung from her car’s rear-view mirror.

The murder occurred in the Cairo suburb of Ain Shams after mosque prayer services on Friday when police fought with Muslim Brotherhood supporters opposed to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s decision to run for president.

An eyewitness reportedly said that George was attacked in her car near a church, where she had planned to deliver medicine to an elderly, infirm woman.

According to the report, the Islamist protestors climbed onto George’s car, collapsing the roof, then dragged her from her car, beating and battering her to such an extent that parts of her scalp were torn off her head. George was then stabbed multiple times and her throat was slit. When she was dead, the Islamist mob set fire to her car.

George’s death received little notice in Egyptian news outlets. Daily News Egypt reported that, according to the interior ministry, 22 year-old journalist Mayada Ashraf was shot and killed while covering the conflicts between security forces and pro-Morsi protestors in Cairo’s Ain Shams area.

The report indicated that Ashraf was one of four people killed in the clashes, and that one was “Coptic Christian Mary Sameh George, who was stabbed to death in Ain Shams.”

In addition, a child and another man were reportedly killed as well.

The Australian Coptic Movement Association condemned George’s murder as “callous, vicious and unprovoked.”

“Mary George was targeted for her faith in what is becoming an increasingly intolerable and inhospitable region for Christians; given that Ain Shams is a known stronghold for the Muslim Brotherhood,” the association said, asking that her murderers be brought to justice.

“The Egyptian government must send a clear message that this behavior will not be tolerated and that the culprits will be held to account under the full force of the law,” the organization continued.

Furthermore, the association urged Western governments “to pay due attention to the extreme and violent agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.”