The Minya Prosecution renewed, on September 21 the detention for 15 days of seven Copts who had been arrested on September 17, 2025, while standing in front of the Minya Security Directorate protesting the disappearance of the Coptic young woman Demiana Ghali Gaber Ghali (24 years old). They are:
- Milad Rizq Aziz
- Milad Zarif Marzouq
- Kyrillos Malak Nady
- Youssef Bushra Habib
- Youssef Mahrous Ghali
- Bishoy Mahrous Ghali
- Mina Maher Moris
Meanwhile, three others were released: Mary Girgis Ayad, Reda Kamal Qaoud, and Ghali Rizq Younan.
All of them are relatives of Demiana Ghali, who was lured and forcibly disappeared with the complicity of the Egyptian National Security Sector in Minya, part of the Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with a hub of forced Islamization in Minya.
It is noteworthy that Minya security forces had arrested 70 Copts from Demiana Ghali’s extended family on September 17, 2025, after they protested the abduction of their daughter. Sixty of them were later released after their mobile phones were confiscated — which have not yet been returned — while investigations continued with the remaining ten.
Demiana Ghali had disappeared on September 9. It was later revealed that all her official identity documents were altered to show her as Muslim the very following day. It is well known that in order to change one’s official papers in such surcumstances, the officer responsible for the “Coptic file” in Minya Security must sign off, after obtaining approval from the Assistant Minister of Interior for the National Security Sector, and after submission of a memorandum with an authenticated certificate of conversion to Islam issued by the notary public, which is under the Egyptian Ministry of Justice.
Bishop Makarios, of Minya, contacted the security services responsible for the Coptic file in Minya following Demiana’s disappearance. He was reassured (“Search is underway… within 24 hours she will be with you…”). Meanwhile, procedures were in fact being completed to change her identity documents.
Demiana Ghali Gaber Ghali had received Holy Communion at St. Barsoum al-Arian Church in Tahnsha, Minya Governorate, on the morning of Friday, September 5, 2025, and continued serving in Sunday School until her disappearance on the morning of the following Tuesday, September 9. Yet, the conversion certificate shows that she had “embraced Islam” on July 16, 2025 — two months before her disappearance.
