Disturbing Adoption Story From Egypt

From the Associated Press:

Egypt: American couples on trial for adoption
By MAGGIE MICHAEL Associated Press Writer

An American woman who is being tried with her husband on charges of forgery and child trafficking after they adopted twin orphans said Saturday the trial was part of Egypt's "persecution" against Christians.

Iris Botros, a dual Egyptian citizen, spoke from behind the bars of a metal cage in a Cairo courtroom that also held her American husband, Louis Andros, and another couple that is being tried for adopting a newborn in Egypt. The trial is the first of its kind in the Muslim country, where religious tradition and murky laws make adoption nearly impossible.
In the tangle of the country's regulations and customs, even lawyers are unsure whether adoption is allowed. What is known is that Islamic law forbids adoption, and that is the law applied to Muslims in Egypt. The religion emphasizes maintaining clear bloodlines to ensure lines of patrimony and inheritance.

The law is far less clear concerning Egypt's Christian minority to which both couples belong. Adoptions within the Christian community — including by Egyptian Christians living abroad — do take place, usually involving a donation to a Christian orphanage. Proponents say this type of adoption is not explicitly banned, but still faces monumental barriers.
"This whole case came because we are Christians," the 40-year-old Botros told The Associated Press during the court's second session Saturday.
"This is all about the Christians' persecution," said Botros, wearing a white prison robe and breaking into tears as she told her story.
Many government officials are resistant to adoption — believing it is not allowed — and Muslim conservatives are opposed because they fear that Christians will adopt Muslim orphans and raise them as Christians.

Botros said the trial will cost her and her 70-year-old husband their house and the Greek restaurant they own in Durham, N.C., where they live.
After years of trying to have a child or adopt in the U.S., the couple traveled to Cairo in the fall and was put in touch with a Coptic Christian orphanage that was caring for two newborn orphans. The orphanage gave them forged documents to say Botros had given birth to the children, and the couple donated $4,600 to the orphanage, said their lawyer, Aameh Saleh.
But the couple was arrested by Egyptian police after they tried to get American passports for the babies at the U.S. Embassy. They were charged with child trafficking, forging documents and trying to smuggle people out of the country. The two could face up to seven years in prison if convicted.

The couple has denied the charges. Botros told the AP on Saturday she didn't know the documents were forged, saying "this orphanage has a government license so I had no doubts."
Several doctors and orphanage administrators have also been charged.
The second couple — Suzan Hagoulf, an American of Egyptian origin, and her Egyptian husband Medhat Metyas, who have been living in Egypt since 2003 — were also arrested in December after adopting a newborn from the same orphanage almost a year ago.
They were charged with forging documents in their adoption — though not with child trafficking because their donation of about $70 to the orphanage was so much smaller than the other American couple's. Hagoulf denied the forgery charges Saturday, saying the documents were issued by the church.

Brig. Gen. Gamal Abdel-Aal, who led the police investigation of the couples, told the court that they were part of a "criminal mob" involved in child trafficking. The couples have denied the charges.
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