CAIRO: In a landmark ruling by Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court Saturday, 12 Christian converts to Islam who wished to convert back to Christianity were allowed to change their religious affiliation in their national identification cards.
Lawyers representing the Christian converts welcomed the decision, calling out “hail justice after the decision was announced.
“This ruling is a step forward for freedom of belief in Egypt, but we still have a long way ahead of us to further ingrain this principle, lawyer Ramsis Al Naggar told Daily News Egypt.
The new ruling stipulated that, while the converts may obtain new documents identifying them as Christians, these documents should refer to their previous conversion to Islam.
The court justified this by saying that it would prevent the manipulation of such conversions for legal purposes with social ramifications such as marriage or parentage during the time they had embraced Islam.
A statement by Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), however, warned the government that any such public reference could subject converts to social stigma and discrimination.
At age 16, Egyptian citizens are required by law to issue a national identification card which is required for education, employment and all financial and administrative transactions.
The recent ruling overturned an April 2007 lower court decision which upheld the government policy of refusing to reflect in mandatory ID cards the conversion back to Christianity of citizens who had earlier converted to Islam, claiming that this was a stark manipulation of religion.
The policy is not based on any Egyptian law, but on what government officials understand to be the sharia prohibition against apostasy, said the statement.
“This decision sets a precedent for 457 similar cases, said Al Naggar.
He added that some of the re-converts had converted to Islam to get remarried, to escape family problems or in return for financial gain, while others were listed as Muslim because one of the parents had converted to Islam.
“The administrative court found that the lower court’s refusal to accept changes in the religious affiliations of both Christians and Bahais is in violation of both Egyptian law and international treaties of which Egypt is signatory, Hossam Bahgat head of EIPR told Daily News Egypt.
Lawyer Naguib Gobraeil told Daily News Egypt that there is a conflict between proponents of the religious and civil state in Egypt of which cases of religious freedom are a manifestation.
“This ruling is a victory for the civil state, said Gobraeil.
However, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights (HRinfo) Gamal Eid was not as optimistic.
“This ruling doesn’t mark any real progress in the sate of freedom of faith in Egypt, said Eid. “The text of the Bahai ruling violently attacked the Bahai faith and the recent decision concerning Christians stipulates that they had converted from Islam which opens the doors for discrimination against them.
Sheikh Youssef El Badry, who is known for spearheading court cases against converts, believes that the stipulation to include the phrase “convert from Islam is a de facto admission that they are apostates and hence can be subjected to the punishment of ridda (apostasy).
He called for drafting a new law that penalizes those who convert from Islam.
“Islam guarantees freedom of faith to those who follow the other monotheistic religions, but those who choose to embrace Islam must submit to all its rules which prohibit conversion, said El Badry.
