Kamilia Shehata Zakher (Arabic: كاميليا شحاته زاخر; born 22 July 1985) is a schoolteacher in Deir Mawas, Egypt, and wife of Tadros Samaan, the Coptic Priest of Saint Mark's Church in Mowas Cathedral in Minya.
[2] Her subsequent return to the Church inflamed sectarian tensions between Egypt's Muslim majority and Coptic Christian minority.
[15] Another lawyer, Mamdouh Ismail, submitted a request with the attorney-general that Christian places of worship be searched to ascertain her whereabouts, and filed an administrative suit against Coptic Pope Shenouda III that alleged Shehata was being held against her will and demanded her release.
[3] EIPR director Hossam Bahgat characterized the actions of the authorities and the Church as a misguided attempt to avoid sectarian strife, telling Daily News Egypt that "Church leaders and police might think that they've suppressed the beginnings of a sectarian problem through 'delivering' a grown up citizen to her family like a piece of furniture, but the truth is that the whole society, including all its sects, loses when it gets involved in this flagrant violation of one of its citizens.
"[1] In May 2011, Shehata appeared on a Coptic satellite television network, Al-Hayat, and stated that she was living with her husband and son and had not converted to Islam or been held against her will by the Church.