Egypt’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest criminal appeals court, is scheduled to hear on Nov. 15 the appeal of Coptic Christian scholar Augustinos Samaan, who is serving five years of hard labor for YouTube videos defending Christianity.
Samaan was convicted of “contempt of religion” and “misuse of social media” under Article 98(f) of the Egyptian Penal Code, the country’s blasphemy law. Five years is the maximum penalty under that law, according to International Christian Concern, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
Masked special-forces officers arrested Samaan, a 37-year-old Coptic researcher, on Oct. 1, 2025, for “derision of Islam.” His YouTube channel has about 100,000 subscribers and focuses on responding to anti-Christian material circulating in Egypt. After interrogation and reported torture, he was first charged with terrorism-related offenses.
Prosecutors later dropped those charges and replaced them with the blasphemy and social media counts. His lawyers say they were not notified that his trial was taking place and were denied timely access to the case file, according to Coptic Solidarity, a U.S.-based advocacy group for Egypt’s Coptic Christians.
Article 98(f) dates to Egypt’s 1937 Penal Code and was amended in 2006. It punishes anyone who “exploits religion” to promote extremist ideas or show contempt for “any divine religion.” The U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports that people charged under such laws have been held longer than the maximum pretrial detention allowed under Article 143 of Egypt’s Code of Criminal Procedure.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan federal advisory body, recommended in March 2026 that the State Department place Egypt on its Special Watch List. USCIRF found that the government continues to systematically restrict religious freedom for minorities and for people whose ideas differ from the state’s interpretation of Islam.
Samaan is one of several Christians arrested or charged over their faith or speech. National Security forces arrested Coptic engineer Sherif Wagih Fahmi at his Alexandria home on Oct. 5, 2026, and accused him of contempt of Islam over material he shared on Facebook. Romany Gharib Adly Azer was arrested after complaining that a police officer at Cairo International Airport confiscated his documents. He remains in State Security detention in Supreme State Security Case No. 4832/2026. Investigators questioned him about a satirical post showing him riding a donkey because of rising gasoline prices.
