 Allegations of Coptic Christian girls being forced to marry Arab Muslim men and convert to Islam in Egypt have been reported by a number of news and advocacy organizations and have sparked public protests.According to a 2009 report by the US State Department, observers have found it extremely difficult to determine whether compulsion was used, and in recent years no such cases have been independently verified.In 2006 two journalists of the Fox News Network were kidnapped at gunpoint in the Gaza Strip by a previously unknown militant group.