IV. Laws, Decrees and Political Developments

31. In the months of July, August and September 2009, EIPR researchers documented the issuance of seven presidential decrees licensing renovations of already existing churches, six of them evangelical churches and one orthodox; all the decrees were issued for churches in the governorates of Minya and Assyout. The details are as follows:

a. Decree 240/2009, 2 July 2009, for the evangelical Coptic community at the existing Welcoming Brethren Church, located in Magris, Sadfa district, Assyout governorate.

b. Decree 241/2009, 2 July 2009, for the evangelical Coptic community at the existing evangelical church in Kom Asfhat, Sadfa district, Assyout governorate.

c. Decree 250/2009, 12 July 2009, for the evangelical Coptic community at the existing Nahdat al-Qadasa Church, located in al-Duweir, Sadfa district, Assyout province.

d. Decree 291/2009, 24 August 2009, for the evangelical Coptic community at the existing Balimuth Brethren Church, located in al-Tiba, Salamout district, Minya governorate.

e. Decree 306/2009, 2 September 2009, for the evangelical Coptic community at the existing evangelical church in Nahiyat Mensafis, Abu Qurqas district, Minya governorate.

f. Decree 307/2009, 2 September 2009, for the evangelical Coptic community at the existing Nahdat al-Qadasa Church, located on al-Thawra St. in Nahiyat Abu Qurqas al-Balad, Abu Qurqas district, Minya province.

g. Decree 311/2009, 13 September 2009, for the Orthodox Coptic community of the existing St. John the Baptist Church, located in Awlad Elias, Sadfa district, Assyout governorate.

32. The daily Nahdat Misr on 23 July 2009 carried a story about a meeting of the People’s Assembly Religious Affairs Committee, attended by Minister of Awqaf Hamdi Zaqzouq, to discuss a request for information filed by MP al-Sayyid Askar about the Ministry of Awqaf’s printing of 100,000 copies of a book titled The Niqab is a Custom, Not Religion. MP Askar, a member of the Muslim Brothers bloc, accused the Ministry of Awqaf in the request for information of squandering public funds to print the book and violating the teachings of Islamic law by advocating against the niqab, the full face veil, instead of focusing efforts on “combating ostentatious women.” The paper reported that the minister denied issuing directives to mosque imams or advocating against the niqab (see paragraph 29 of the Second Quarterly Report, 2009).

33. In a meeting of the President and the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) leaders in the Damietta governorate on 3 August 2009, held on the sidelines of the President’s visit to Damietta to inaugurate several new development and service enterprises, President Mubarak said, “I am the President of all Egyptians regardless of their religion. There is no difference between a Muslim and a Christian because we are all Egyptian citizens living on the land of Egypt.” Mubarak stated that “religious discrimination is an old colonial project to divide sons of the same country.”

34. In the period under review, starting on 8 August 2009, the Civil Status Authority began implementing Interior Minister decree 520/2009, which changed the Implementing Regulations of the Civil Status Law to regulate the issuance of identity documents such as birth certificates and national identity card for members of religions that are not officially recognized by the state; the decree allows the person concerned to place a dash (—) in the slot allocated for religious affiliation on official documents (see paragraph 28 of the First Quarterly Report, 2009). The authority issued several birth certificates and national identity cards to Egyptian Baha’is who had older documents that contained a dash in the religion slot or identified them as Baha’is. Nevertheless, the authority refused to issue any official documents to married Egyptian Baha’is, on the grounds that the authority does not recognize the Baha’i marriage contract. Instead, the authority asked married Baha’is to identify themselves as single instead of married, which was rejected by the applicants.

This problem had not yet been resolved as of the writing of this report. It is worth noting that before the new national identity cards began to be issued in 2000, the Civil Status Authority routinely issued official documents to Baha’i citizens that recognized their actual marital status without requiring a certified Baha’i marriage contract.

35. Nahdat Misr on 8 August 2009 published a long interview with Sheikh Salem Mohamed Salem, the head of al-Azhar’s fatwa committee, which is responsible for, among other things, conversions to Islam from other religions. In the interview, Salem said that some days there are as many as 15 conversions and no less than 10 conversions a day. He added that the committee dealt with Egyptian citizens who wanted to convert to Islam, while non-nationals converted through the Office of the Grand Imam of al-Azhar (Mashyakhat al-Azhar). He said that the majority of conversions the committee saw were motivated by “worldly concerns,” adding, “Not everyone who comes to convert has the real objective of entering the religion of Islam motivated by conviction, belief and pure intention; indeed, some, unfortunately, use conversion as a means of achieving some worldly end.”

Giving some examples of people converting for worldly reasons, he said, “Some convert because they want to marry a Muslim girl…because Islam does not allow a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man…Others convert to Islam to avoid court orders and rulings.” He also said there are cases in which Christian men convert to Islam “to rid themselves of their wives” or vice-versa; in other cases, a Christian woman may be involved in a romantic relationship with a Muslim man and so she converts to complete the marriage. The head of the committee added, “There is another type that converts thinking that al-Azhar and Muslims will give them huge sums of money as soon as they do, as the church does with Christian converts, and meet all their needs for jobs and apartments.” He said he could not refuse to accept the conversion of anyone who came before the fatwa committee, even if they appear for non-religious reasons.

Salem said that there are some parties—he did not identify them—that might intervene and ask that “a certain person’s conversion be obstructed if that conversion could cause endless problems or spark a crisis and social strife.” He said that in such cases, the committee uses certain justifications to delay the conversion. He said there are no statistics regarding the number of conversions before the committee, but he also said that state agencies occasionally come to review the conversion registry.

In a related context, Minister of Awqaf Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq said, “The Office of the Grand Imam of al-Azhar alone sees 400 conversions of people of various nationalities every month. They come to al-Azhar of their own free will, and no one pressures them or offers them money, wealth or a job. Freedom of belief is guaranteed to all, as long as there is no contempt shown for religions or inflaming of sectarian passions.” The Minister made these statements in an interview published by the weekly al-Diyar on 8 September 2009.

36. The weekly Sawt al-Umma published an interview on 8 August 2009 with General Abu Bakr al-Gindi, the chair of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. Asked about the number of Copts, Shi’ites and Baha’is in Egypt, he responded, “We have no data on the number of Copts or Shi’ites. As for Baha’is, there is no such religion. The three religions that we list on the survey form are Islam, Christianity and Judaism, in addition to the word ‘other.’” Justifying the lack of such data, al-Gindi said, “According to the international norms of census-taking, questions of religion are optional. Every country in the world operates on this basis.”

37. At a press conference convened by Minister of Awqaf Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq during his reception of the Lebanese mufti on 15 August 2009, the Minister said that Egypt has no mosques for sects, a reference to Shi’ites. Zaqzouq said that Egypt has 104,000 mosques and prayer corners, all of which are under the full supervision of the Ministry of Awqaf. The national daily al-Ahram quoted Zaqzouq on 16 August as saying, “Of all the Islamic peoples, Egyptians love the people of the Prophet’s house [Shi’ites] most of all, but that does not mean that there are Shi’ite mosques in Egypt.”

38. The national daily Rose al-Youssef reported on 9 September 2009 that the Ministry of Culture drafted new guidelines governing the participation of publishers in the Cairo International Book Fair. The paper quoted al-Sayyid Ahmed Salah, the chair of the Central Agency for Fairs at the General Egyptian Book Organization, as saying, “The new guidelines require publishers not to distribute any published material that undermines belief. The maximum penalty is closure of the publisher’s stall and a three-year ban on participation in the book fair.” Salah added that publishers have been made aware of the new regulations and that they were issued “to avoid the events of last year.”

On 1 February 2009, the police arrested two Christians at the book fair who were allegedly distributing free copies of the Bible to book fair patrons for the purpose of proselytizing. The two young men told EIPR researchers that they were tortured with physical blows and electric shocks in the State Security police headquarters in Assyout after they were arrested and forcibly returned to the governorate (see paragraph 22 of the First Quarterly Report, 2009).

39. On 17 September 2009, the daily al-Shorouk quoted Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mufid Shehab as saying, “Some 500 churches were built in the last 25 years—more than the number built in the previous 100 years.” The Minister denied that “there is a state war against the construction of churches or that the state discriminates between Muslims and Copts in the matter of houses of worship. Houses of worship are subject to certain norms, procedures and guarantees that must be fulfilled before a building permit can be granted.” He added, “The state welcomes the establishment and renovation of churches.”