When the plane carrying Maher El-Gohary and his daughter, Dina Mo'otahssem, took off from Cairo International Airport last month, they both cried with joy. After spending two and a half years in hiding for leaving Islam to become Christians, they were elated at their newfound freedom. They also felt confident that once they landed in Syria, they would quickly get visas to the US and start a new life. That hope soon proved unfounded. After spending over a week and a half without being able to obtain visas to the US or any country in Europe, they realized that they may have effectively traded their lives as prisoners in their own country for refugees in another.
"I feel like we have stepped out of a prison cell and into a fire," said El-Gohary. "My daughter and I share the water bottles to live, because there is no income."
58-year-old El-Gohary gained notoriety in Egypt after he sued the national government in August 2008 for the right to change the religion listed on his state-issued ID card. Both El-Gohary and his daughter were publicly branded as apostates in a country where 84 percent of Muslims believe those who leave Islam should be executed. This is according to a study published by the Pew Research Center.
The same month the case was filed in 2008, El-Gohary and his then 15-year-old daughter were forced to go into hiding. In December 2010 - after a long legal battle - El-Gohary obtained a ruling ordering the Interior Ministry to allow him to leave, but he said it still took several weeks for the government to comply; the revolution from January 25 to February 11 was not an inconvenience.
Dina said that although leaving Egypt was "like a miracle", she is devastated at the prospect of spending more of her life waiting. She said she is just as scared in Syria as she was in Egypt. "We are really, really tired of all this suffering," she said. "I have lost two years of my life. I want to finish my school."
Source: Compass Direct News
