Yes, honor the 21 martyrs but what about Egypt's living persecuted Copts?

By Wendy Yurgo, Op-ed contributor Tuesday, February 24, 2026

On February 15, Coptic Christians marked the anniversary of the 21 men beheaded by ISIS on a Libyan beach in 2015. The world remembers the orange jumpsuits. The kneeling figures. The final words, “Lord Jesus Christ.”

But while we remember the martyrs, Egypt’s Christians are still living under fire.

Look around Cairo and you see ancient wonders. Look closer and you see a modern tragedy unfolding quietly. Egypt’s Coptic Christians, around 10 million strong and roughly 10 percent of the country, live under constant pressure that grinds down their daily lives. The mass jihadist attacks that made global headlines in the 2010s have faded. What replaced them is, in many ways, harder to see and just as damaging. Relentless harassment. Mobs that burn homes and drive families out. Blasphemy charges that lock believers away. A government that too often fails to intervene.

The Open Doors World Watch List 2026 ranks Egypt at number 42 with a score of 68 out of 100, placing it among countries where Christians face very high levels of persecution. The real story is in the breakdown. Pressure on private life, family life, and community life sits at 74.5 percent. That means faith touches every corner of daily existence. Violence is lower at 34.4 percent, but do not let that number mislead you. Persecution in Egypt is less about large scale bombings now and more about constant social, legal, and economic pressure. Faith may be protected on paper. In practice, it can cost you your job, your housing, your security, even your freedom.

Early February brought another reminder. A serious fire tore through the crowded Manshiyat Naser district of Cairo, often called Garbage City, a largely Coptic community where families collect and sort the city’s trash. Community videos and reports shared by advocacy groups show significant destruction in the tightly packed neighborhood and describe dozens of homes lost and hundreds displaced. As of this writing, no widely reported independent investigation has confirmed an official cause or issued a final public accounting. Residents continue to warn about unsafe infrastructure and chronic vulnerability in the area.

That is how persecution looks now. Not always spectacular. Not always televised. Just steady.

National ID cards list religion. Jobs disappear. Apartments are denied. Women face harassment in public. Converts from Islam risk family rejection or worse. In provinces such as Minya, rumors spark mob violence. Someone dated the wrong person. A church is accused of expanding. A social media post becomes a blasphemy charge. Police arrive late or not at all. Families flee carrying what they can.

Blasphemy laws make the pressure official. On January 3, 2026, Christian researcher and YouTuber Augustin Samaan was sentenced to five years of hard labor for contempt of religion after defending Christianity online. On January 28, 2026, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom again urged that Egypt be placed on the Special Watch List. The commission cited systematic violations of religious freedom and the routine use of pretrial detention as punishment.

And yet.

The 21 still stand.

In 2015, twenty Egyptian Copts and one Ghanaian were ordered to deny Christ. They refused. They were executed while praying the name of Jesus. The Coptic Orthodox Church recognized them as martyrs that same year. The Catholic Church followed in 2023.

On February 22, Coptic Orphans hosted a sold out tribute titled “21 Martyrs: Knelt but Not Broken” in partnership with the Museum of the Bible, which provided the venue in Washington, D.C. The evening included a screening of the animated short film “The 21,” created in a neo- Coptic iconography style that is symbolic and reverent. The film does not show gore. It shows faith. Jonathan Roumie, executive producer of the film and star of “The Chosen,” reflected on traveling to Egypt with Coptic Orphans, where he met the families of the martyrs. What struck him most, he said, was the forgiveness they expressed toward the captors and the strength of their faith.

The film is quiet. Sacred. Still.

Egypt is not.

The Copts trace their faith to Saint Mark in the first century. They are not outsiders to their own land. They are woven into Egypt’s history. And they have not broken.

Persecution in Egypt is rarely one dramatic headline now. It is a steady weight designed to make faith exhausting. It is meant to wear people down until silence feels safer than witness.

The 21 were killed for refusing to deny Christ. Their brothers and sisters today are pressured daily to live as though their faith does not matter.

If remembrance does not lead to awareness, and awareness does not lead to resolve, then the lesson of their courage is lost.

The witness of the 21 is not finished. It is still unfolding.