ISTANBUL, October 31 (Compass Direct News)

A Coptic Christian blogger in Egypt entering his second year of prison without charge is being pressured to convert to Islam in exchange for his freedom, his attorneys said. On Oct. 3, 2008, Hani Nazeer, a 28-year-old high school social worker from Qena, Egypt and author of the blog “Karz El Hob” (“Love Cherries”), was arrested by Egypt’s State Security Investigations and sent to Burj Al-Arab prison.

Gamel Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said Nazeer upset Islamic authorities by criticizing the increasing Islamization of Egyptian civil society and irked church leaders by lamenting political involvement of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Police had detained Nazeer’s relatives at a police station and threatened to hold them until he came out of hiding, Eid said, and Nazeer turned himself into a police station in October 2008 – on the advice of Bishop Kirollos of Nag Hammadi.

Nazeer reported to his attorneys that Kirollos had told him he would be in jail only four days, and his lawyers suspect collusion between Egyptian and church authorities. “Hani is in between the hate of the Islamists and the hate of the Christians,” Eid said. “The Islamists of course are against him, and the church [leadership] is against him, so he’s being badly squeezed between the two.”