The Situation of the Bahá'í Community of Egypt

UPDATE – May 2007
Religious identity and the Bahá'í community of Egypt

Overview

Recent court rulings in Egypt have highlighted the dire human rights situation facing the Bahá'í community there. The rulings in turn have touched off a significant debate between human rights organizations and major Islamic groups about freedom of religion and belief.

Deprived of all rights as an organized religious community since 1960, Egyptian Bahá'ís are facing an immediate crisis over government efforts to deny them all-important identification cards. The ID cards are required by law and are essential for access to employment, education, and medical and financial services, as well as freedom of movement and security of property.
(View August 2005 Report by the Bahá'í International Community)

At the heart of the current situation is a government policy that forces Bahá'ís to either lie about their religion and illegally falsify their religious affiliation—or go without ID cards, which currently require that a person choose either Islam, Christianity, or Judaism, which are the three officially recognized religions in Egypt.

The crisis facing the Bahá'í community gained international attention after a 4 April 2006 ruling by a three-judge Administrative Court which held that Government efforts to deprive Bahá'ís of ID cards were illegal, and upheld the right of the Bahá'í plaintiffs to state their religion on official documents.
(View Court Ruling: English | Arabic)

While Egyptian human rights groups immediately hailed the decision, conservative Islamic organizations—including scholars at Al Azhar University and representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood—urged the government to file an appeal. Media attention on the case has been intense, and more than 400 articles, stories, commentaries and programs have appeared in the Egyptian and Arabic news media about the case or its fallout since the initial ruling.

On 16 December, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the government’s position in the case, issuing an 11-page ruling that focused largely on the theology of the Bahá'í Faith rather than on legal issues surrounding the rights of Bahá'ís to be treated like other Egyptians citizens under international law.
(View the Supreme Administrative Court Ruling: Arabic | English)

The controversy promises to continue unabated, despite the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling. A number of groups, inside and outside of Egypt, have continued to raise questions about the situation of Egyptian Bahá'ís. In March, for example, the US State Department released its annual human rights report, and the section on Egypt noted that members of the Bahá'í Faith have "experienced personal and collective hardship" in the absence of religious freedom for them.

As well, several other legal cases concerning ID cards for Bahá'ís are working their way through Egypt’s administrative court system. One such case, for example, concerns a twin brother and sister who have been denied birth certificates, necessary for enrollment in school, because their parents refuse to falsely identify them as Muslims. Lawyers working on their behalf have asked the courts for a ruling that would allow them merely to leave the religious affiliation field blank, or to adopt some similar measure. The next hearing on that case has been set for 3 July 2007.

Here follows a chronology of events since last April, when the ground-breaking ruling by the administrative court brought widespread attention to the situation of Egyptian Bahá'ís and their struggle for religious freedom.

Chronology, April – December 2006:

• 4 April 2006 – A three-judge panel of the Egyptian Administrative Court upholds the right of a Bahá'í couple to lawfully state their religion on their ID cards. The cards had been confiscated by the Government after the couple sought to have their passports updated to include their daughters.
  
  The couple, Husam Izzat Musa and Ranya Enayat Rushdy, sued, saying the confiscation was illegal under Egypt’s Constitution and international law. The Court ruled for the couple, ordering the Civil Registry to issue new documents that properly identify them as Bahá'ís, citing existing precedents and Islamic jurisprudence that allow for the right of non-Muslims to live in Muslim lands “without any of them being forced to change what they believe in.”
  
  “It is not inconsistent with Islamic tenets to mention the religion on this card even though it may be a religion whose rites are not recognized for open practice, such as Bahá’ism [sic] and the like,” wrote the Court. “On the contrary, these [religions] must be indicated so that the status of its bearer is known and thus he does not enjoy a legal status to which his belief does not entitle him in a Muslim society.”
  
  View Court Ruling: English Arabic
  
  
• Early April to early May 2006 – Various news media in Egypt and the Arab world report on the ruling, stirring a storm of reaction. Human rights groups in Egypt are quoted as supportive; representatives of Al Azhar are negative, as is the Government reaction. Newspapers in Bahrain, Kuwait and elsewhere in the region also write about the case, with many going into long explanations about the Bahá'í Faith. Ordinary Egyptians and Arabic-speaking people throughout the world began to react in blogs and other on-line forums. In an on-line article in Al Arabiya about the ruling, which also reported generally about the Bahá'í Faith, more than 100 people posted online comments, for example.
  
  Here are some links to some of the early articles:
  
  
  1. On 6 April, the IRIN, a news service of the United Nations serving the region, wrote, “Human rights activists have welcomed a landmark ruling by the Administrative Court recognizing the right of Egyptian Bahais to have their religion acknowledged on official documents.”
     
     Read the original article >
  2. On 6 April, Al Arabiya, an online service of the television network, carried the headline, “They were forcing them to register themselves as Muslims; An Egyptian court recognizes the Bahá’í religion despite refusal by the Azhar.” More than 100 online commentaries were appended to this article.
     
     Read the original article in Arabic >
  3. On 7 April, Al-Watan, “Homeland,” a newspaper of Kuwait, carried the headline: “They described it as the Greatest Setback; Al-Azhar scholars demand that the Egyptian judiciary review the ruling of acknowledging ‘Al-Bahá’íyyah’ [the Bahá'í Faith] as a religion.” The lead of the article says: “A number of Al-Azhar scholars condemned the ruling of the Egyptian judiciary that acknowledged the Bahá’í creed, stressing that it is considered a great legal setback and a tragedy that must be drawn back, emphasizing that Bahá’ís are not Muslims, rather, they are agents of Zionism and colonialism and are enemies of the country; they demanded a review of the ruling that acknowledges this creed.”
  4. On 4 May, Al-Ahram, one of Egypt’s leading daily newspapers, carried the headline: “Crisis in Parliament Over a Judicial Ruling About the Bahá'ís; The Deputies: ‘Al-Bahá’íyyah’ [the Bahá'í Faith] is not a Divine religion … and the ruling contradicts the constitution.” The article said that the Government had decided to appeal the ruling.
     
     
• 28 April 2006 – After reading that the Government has asked Al Azhar for information on the Bahá'í Faith, and knowing that much misinformation about the Bahá'í Faith has been published in the Egyptian media, the Bahá'í International Community’s United Nations Office writes to leaders of the Al Azhar Islamic Research Council to explain the essential principles of Bahá'í belief. The letter asks principally that facts about the Faith be obtained from “trustworthy” sources “uninfluenced by the misconceptions” that are being spread about the Faith. The letter also offers a brief statement of basic Bahá'í principles and doctrine.
  
  View the letter in English >
  
  View the letter in Arabic >
• 7 May 2006 – The Government moves formally to appeal the Administrative Court’s ruling. The appeal came after attacks on the ruling in Parliament and by representatives of Al Azhar. According to the IRIN news service, an Interior Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “We presented an appeal to revoke the previous ruling on the basis that neither the Egyptian constitution nor Islamic law recognize Bahaism [sic] as a religion unto itself.”
• 13 May 2006 – “Kifayah” [Enough], a loosely organized group of civil society organizations, journalists, writers, artists and academics, issued a collective statement calling for an end to discrimination against Bahá'ís:
  
  “We confirm that this is not a case of the followers of the Bahá’í denomination only, it is the case of all minorities and faiths that are suffering from discrimination in Egyptian society for decades,” said the group, which is composed of the Popular Group for Change, the Egyptian Democratic Centre, the Centre for Socialist Studies, Socialist Horizons, the Arabic network for Human Rights Information, and Civil Watch for Human Rights, along with some 40 journalists, writers, artists and academics.
  
  “Our attitude springs from a deep belief that calls for constitutional and political reform cannot be separated from demands for the guarantee of freedom of belief and expression equally for every citizen, regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender or color, otherwise, reform would become merely ink on paper and lose all meaning,” the 13 May statement continues. “Today, the followers of a small denomination are sacrificed to fanaticism, but whose turn will it be tomorrow….if we be silent now?”
• 15 May 2006 – Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court suspends on appeal the implementation of the earlier lower Administrative Court ruling that allowed Bahá'ís to have their religion recognized on official documents. The government’s appeal of the lower court’s ruling is set to be heard on 19 June 2006.
• 16 June 2006 – The Supreme Administrative Court continues the hearing until 16 September after a brief procedural session.
• 8 August 2006 – The state-sponsored National Council for Human Rights holds a major symposium on the issues surrounding religious affiliation and identity cards, at which the Bahá'í community offers testimony. http://news.bahai.org/story/472
• 21 September 2006 – The Supreme Administrative Court again postpones the hearing on the April ruling until 20 November, to await the completion of an advisory report by the State Commissioner’s Authority. http://news.bahai.org/story/480
• 14 October 2006 – The Egyptian newspaper Rose El-Youssef publishes a story saying the advisory report is completed, and that the State Commissioner’s Authority is urging the rejection of the lower court’s ruling.
• 17 October 2006 – The initial hearing on a second lawsuit over religious affiliation on identity cards, this time concerning a Bahá'í university student who was dismissed after his military deferment was revoked for lack of a new, computerized ID card, was continued to 9 January 2006.
• 2 December 2006 – A final hearing is held in the government’s appeal of the lower court’s ruling before the Supreme Administrative Court. The Court indicates its judgment will be issued in the case on 16 December 2006. http://news.bahai.org/story/493
• 16 December 2006 – The Supreme Administrative Court issues its final judgment in the case of Husam Izzat Musa and Ranya Enayat Rushdy, upholding the government’s policy of allowing only three religious affiliations on state ID cards and government documents. http://news.bahai.org/story/495
• 17 December 2006 – Various Egyptian human rights organizations issue statements of support for the Bahá'í community of Egypt in their struggle for basic civil rights, such as the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies.
  
  View the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies Press Release:
  English
  Arabic
• 21 December 2006 – The Universal House of Justice, the highest governing body of the Baha'i Faith, addresses a message to the Baha'is of Egypt in the wake of a 16 December Supreme Administrative Court decision in Cairo that upheld a discriminatory government policy regarding the Baha'is and their identification cards.
  
  Read the message:
  English
  Arabic

The Bahá'ís’ point of view

The discussion about the rights of Bahá'ís and the nature of freedom of religion or belief in Egyptian society is welcome, but it is important to keep in mind that the debate is not and should not be about Bahá'í theology or belief—it is about the right for Bahá'ís to hold their beliefs and still be allowed all of the rights that other Egyptian citizens are given.

The Administrative Court’s April ruling clearly indicated that the law requires the mention of the one’s religion in identity documents, even if the religion is one that is not recognized: “It is not inconsistent with Islamic tenets to mention the religion on this card even though it may be a religion whose rites are not recognized for open practice,” as is the case with the Bahá'í Faith in Egypt.

The Administrative Court’s judgment is essentially correct: since Egyptian law requires that identity cards, which are the key to access to virtually all services in Egyptian society, state religious identification, it would be unfair to force Bahá'ís to identify themselves as Muslims, Christians, or Jews—which is the current government policy.

The application form that must be filled out to receive government-mandated identification cards includes a requirement that the applicant sign a “Declaration by Applicant and Employer” section, wherein the applicant declares “that all details in this application are correct and real; I accept responsibility for consequences, with full knowledge that providing any incorrect information in this application is considered forgery of official documents and is legally publishable according to the articles of the penal code.”

The declaration on the application form makes the providing of false information an offense punishable by law. Yet, Bahá’ís are being told to by officials of the Egyptian government that they must declare themselves to be either Muslim, Christian or Jew. Most importantly for a Bahá’í, the declaration of his or her religion as being another is unconscionable as a matter of principle; such a false statement is tantamount to the denial of one’s faith.

It would be enough for the Bahá'ís if they were simply allowed to leave the religious identification section blank. But since the government insists on religious identification, it becomes a matter of religious principle for Bahá'ís in Egypt to properly state their religion. The Bahá'í writings forbid lying and dissimulation of any sort.

For more information

Ms. Bani Dugal Bahá'í International Community United Nations Office 888 United Nations Plaza Suite 120 New York City, New York, USA 10017 1-212-803-2500 Email: uno-nyc@bic.org

Ms. Diane Ala’i Bahá'í International Community United Nations Office Route des Morillons 15 CH-1218 Grand-Saconnex (Geneva) Switzerland 41-22-798-5400 Email: bic@geneva.bic.org