CAIRO, EGYPT (BNO NEWS) -- Around ten thousand Salafists on Friday took to the streets of the Egyptian capital to demand the release of a Copt who has converted to Islam and is allegedly locked in a monastery.

Ahram online reported that protesters marched in Cairo from a mosque to a Coptic cathedral calling for the freeing of Camilia Shehata and any other Copt whom, according to them, has converted to Islam and was locked in the monastery. Protesters held banners and chanted for the protection of any Muslim convert.

Shehata is the wife of a Coptic priest who disappeared last summer and was then found at a friend's house a few days later. The Salafists accuse the Coptic Church for holding Shehata because she adopted Islam, but the Church claims she is a Copt.

The military police surrounded the area to prevent any incidents, even though protesters assured that they had no intentions of getting into the cathedral. Salafists have been demanding the release of Shehata since before the Egyptian revolution, and sometimes they resulted in violence against Copts.

There are around 8 million Christian Copts in Egypt, which represent about 10 percent of the population.

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