Religion took center stage in Egypt’s courts this year, with most controversial court cases dealing with issues of conversion. Whether the issue is with Muslims who had converted to Christianity, Bahais who want their real faith recognized on their national identification cards or religious scholars lashing out against their secular brethren, Egyptians have been at loggerheads with the law, all in the name of god.Although the Egyptian constitution upholds freedom of faith, the Ministry of Interior seems to go by different rules, insisting that only Islam, Christianity or Judaism be included on IDs and refusing to recognize conversions.
Recognizing the faithIn February, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) filed a lawsuit on behalf of Hosni Hussein Abdel-Massih, born in 1989, who was suspended from the Suez Canal University due to his inability to obtain an identity card recognizing his Bahai religion.Another Bahai case involves 14-year-old twins Imad and Nancy Rauf Hindi who are unable to get the new computer-generated birth certificate unless they convert to either Islam or Christianity, even though their father had obtained birth certificates for the two children when they were born in 1993 recognizing them as Bahais.In October, Egyptian Shia activist and writer Mohamed El-Derini was remanded in custody for 15 days, charged with contempt for religion because for embracing Shiism. The prosecutor also pressed charges against him for a book he published 15 months ago, titled “The Capital of Hell, where he gave a detailed account of his torture in Tora prison during his first detainment in 2004. The prosecutor accused him of publishing false information.Conversion from Islam to Christianity and vice versa also took pride of place in 2007, triggering a suggestion by Coptic intellect Samir Morqos to create a special committee to deal with such cases.The “Committee Number 46 (reference to Article 46 of the constitution, which guarantees freedom of belief and religious practice) would be a Coptic Institution similar to the Ministry of Religious Endowments, which has jurisprudence over administrative matters related to Muslims.The most prominent of these cases was that of Mohamed Hegazy and his pregnant wife. In August Coptic rights group the Al-Kalima Center brought a case on behalf of Hegazy, 25, who said he wanted to have his conversion recognized officially so that his child would be born Christian. This came on the heels of another case involving 12 former Christians, who converted to Islam and are now trying to revert.Another group in the limelight this year are the Quranists – Muslims who believe that the Quran should be the only frame of reference in Islam and dismiss large parts of the sunnah of Prophet Mohamed (PBUH). Five alleged Quranists were detained and accused of contempt for religion in May. The EIPR released a statement demanding their release, in addition to demanding an investigation into at least one detainee’s claims of being beaten and threatened with rape during the time he spent at a state security prison. According to the statement, state security officers arrested Abdel Latif Mohamed Ahmed, Ahmed Mohamed Dehmash and Abdel Hamid Mohamed Abdel Rahman on May 29 following an order from the Minister of Interior. Two days later Amr Tharwat El Baz was arrested and on June 17, Ayman Mohamed Abdel Rahman was taken in. The list of accused alleged Quranists also includes Ahmed Sobhy Mansour and Othman Mahmoud, who live abroad.
EspionageThis year was also rife with sensational spy stories, the biggest of which was the case of Mohamed Essam Ghoneim El-Attar who was tried in February and sentenced to 15 years in prison.El-Attar was charged with spying for Israel and harming national interest. He was arrested on Jan. 1 at the Cairo Airport when he flew in from Canada.The security prosecutor claims that El-Attar was recruited by Israeli agents in Turkey in August 2001and that Israeli agents assisted him in obtaining residency in Canada under a fake name.In another high profile case, Egyptian engineer Mohamed Sayed Saber, who worked at the nuclear energy agency, was accused of spying for the Israeli secret service Mossad. Following a rushed trial, on June 25 the Cairo state security court sentenced him to life in prison and a fine after convicting him of spying for Israel.
Political adversaries Back on the spotlight was ex-president of Al-Ghad Party Ayman Nour. US ally Egypt in early June reacted angrily to a call by President George W. Bush to free Nour. Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said it amounted to “unacceptable interference in Egyptian affairs.A court on May 31 had rejected his last bid to be released on health grounds, with a source close to the case saying the court had no faith in the private medical assessment presented by Nour. In June following an appeal the court refused once more to release him in a case that has been described as politically motivated.Sociologist, dissident and now exile, Saad Eddin Ibrahim came under fire after publishing a controversial editorial in the Washington Post on Aug. 21 and participating in a Prague conference on Arab Democracy in June where he briefly met with President Bush. The 68-year-old academic, who was imprisoned close to three years in 2000, was advised to stay abroad for the time being until the the attorney general’s office drops the nearly 13 cases filed against him by National Democratic Party (NDP) members.Ibrahim was accused of tarnishing Egypt’s reputation, insulting President Hosni Mubarak, spreading rumors about the status of human rights as well as harming the national economy for saying that the prison sentences passed down on the four journalists in September was proof of a regime-led crackdown that targets more than just the Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier this year, members of the US House of Representatives introduced legislation that would withhold $200 million in military aid from Egypt to pressure the government to crack down on human rights violators, among other issues. Ibrahim’s opponents say this drastic move by the US was a result of his speeches about the state of human rights in Egypt. The last of these cases was filed in November requesting to strip him of Egyptian citizenship.
