IV. Laws, Decrees and Political Developments

28. The Minister of Culture issued decree no. 508/2009 amending the borders of the Abu Fana Monastery compound, registered as a national antiquity by Ministerial Decree 10357/1951. The monastery is located in the village of Qasr Hor in the Mallawi district of Minya. Although the decree was originally issued on 13 May 2009, it was not published in the Official Gazette until 26 December 2009. Sectarian clashes took place in the area of the Abu Fana Monastery in 2008 because of a dispute about ownership of the land surrounding the monastery between local Bedouins and monks. The clashes left one Muslim farmer dead, shot by a still unknown source, and seven monks injured, three of whom were kidnapped by Bedouins (see paragraph 10 of the Second Quarterly Report, 2008).

The decree, approved by the Permanent Committee on Islamic and Coptic Monuments in a meeting held on 20 July 2008, amended the borders of the monastery compound as follows: 500 meters shall be taken from the northern wall of the monastery heading east for 200 meters, breaking at the southeast for 300 meters then east for 180 meters; from the south, 500 meters shall be taken from the southern wall of the monastery for 390 meters heading east; from the east, 400 meters shall be taken from the eastern wall of the monastery for 750 meters heading north. From the west, the monastery compound shall extend to the borders of the Christian cemetery currently in use, with the addition of a plot of land measuring 22 qirats and 13 sahms (a little less than one feddan), owned by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, located between the monastery’s western wall and the cemetery.

At the same time, the Mallawi bishopric in Minya on 21 October implemented an order issued by Minya governor Ahmed Diya'a al-Din to raise the height of the wall around the Abu Fana Monastery to four meters; previous sections had been built at a height of 1.5 meters. A church source told the EIPR that the bishopric received an official letter from the Minya Governor’s Office on 18 October approving the adjustments to the wall. A delegation from the Mallawi bishopric, led by Father Dimitrius, the bishop of Mallawi and Ashmonin, visited the Minya governor in his office on 21 October to thank him for approving the bishopric’s request to start work on the second phase of heightening the walls of the Abu Fana Monastery.

Hegemon Bula Anwar, the trustee of the bishopric, told EIPR researchers that the bishopric started raising the walls after the governor’s approval and are finishing the wall around the ancient compound inside the monastery, bringing all the water and electricity infrastructure inside the wall and paying the required fees for each feddan, in accordance with the regulations of the governorate and the Agency for Agricultural Development and Land Reclamation. Anwar considered the governor’s decision to be a positive step and the fulfillment of promises made. He added that the permit allows the walls to be heightened from three directions only — south, west and east — from 1.5 meters to 4 meters, as the monastery requested. However, the status of the eastern wall, which was the point of dispute with neighboring Bedouins, is still unclear. Both the monastery and its Muslim neighbors are seeking to buy the state-owned land adjacent to the monastery from the east as a means of laying exclusive claim to the land.

29. The General Agency for the National Library and Egyptian Archives issued a statement on 1 October 2009 responding to objections to Law 8/2009 on the protection of manuscripts, ratified by the President in February 2009. According to the statement, there are objections that “the law is aimed, first and foremost, at destroying Coptic history and erasing Coptic civilization.” The agency said that such criticisms were “a stab at the patriotism, and even religion, of every person who helped to prepare and issue this law. Sincere Egyptians are not content to see one of the most ancient and dearest periods of its civilization disappear — Coptic civilization — which concerns all Egyptians regardless of religion, nor are Muslims of sound faith pleased with the appropriation of the property of others.” The agency said, “We must distinguish between private and public ownership. The manuscripts in the possession of monasteries are not the property of the church, but the property of Egypt and its people. These manuscripts do not tell the history of Christianity in Egypt, but rather the history of Egypt under Christianity.”

The statement, a copy of which was obtained by the EIPR, added that the law protecting manuscripts “was issued in its final form to assuage the conscience of every sincere patriot and avoid impinging on the freedom of ownership while also protecting the right of the Egyptian people to know their heritage and protect it from injury or destruction.” The statement added that the National Library and Archives seeks to offer coming generations “the manuscripts of their forebears as a witness to the greatness and splendor of the past, to give them hope of clearing out the obscurantist thought, cultural regressions and intellectual rigidity that has marred the present.”

The law to protect manuscripts, issued in February 2009, requires any person possessing a pre-modern manuscript or a book that constitutes a singular intellectual or artistic endeavor and whose preservation is deemed by the General Agency for the National Library and Egyptian Archives to be in the national interest to inform the agency about the manuscript or book so that it can be registered; the manuscript will remain in the owner’s possession with the promise that he will preserve it.

30. The Orthodox Coptic Church held its annual conference for faith affirmation on 1 October in the governorate of Fayyoum, titled “Attempts at Sectarian Invasion: Types, Dimensions and How to Confront It.” The conference discussed what church leaders dubbed “the evangelical war” and plans by the evangelical church to penetrate the Orthodox Coptic Church and peel away adherents. The daily newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported on 3 October that Father Bishoi, the secretary of the Holy Synod and the bishop of Damietta, exposed what he called “an evangelical plan to convert Orthodox Copts into Protestants in 20 years. He added that the plan is not an invasion or external attack, but rather infiltration from within.”

Father Safwat al-Bayadi, the president of the evangelical community, denied the charge, telling the press, “Evangelicals call for freedom of thought and belief and do not hinder anyone’s thought or belief.” He added, “We have taught our children to know their faith well. The door is open for anyone, and we do not hinder anyone or force him to adopt a particular confession or thought.” The evangelical community also issued a statement published in several newspapers protesting Father Bishoi’s attack on evangelicals during the conference. The statement was sent to Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of Alexandria and the Holy See of St. Mark, to apprise him of the evangelical community’s official position.

31. The Supreme Council of al-Azhar issued a decree on 8 October banning female students and faculty from wearing the niqab, or full face veil, in classrooms in Azhar institutions. In a statement, the council said that the decree would be implemented in the primary, preparatory and secondary levels, as well as all female dormitories. The statement said that female students who wish to wear the niqab can do so at home, the streets and the campus of the institution at which they study, but it was prohibited inside female-only classrooms taught by female teachers.

According to the council’s statement, a copy of which was obtained by the EIPR, the council also decided to prohibit female students at all educational levels in al-Azhar institutions and its university from wearing the niqab in female-only examination halls supervised by female rectors and monitors. The council said that the decree is not against a woman wearing the niqab in her private life, public conduct or work, “but against the use of this right in inappropriate circumstances such that it instills this idea in the minds of young girls and followers of the minority opinion, which contravenes the opinion of the majority of jurists that the face of a woman is not shameful.”

At the same time, the Islamic Research Council announced in its meeting of 31 October that it supports the decree banning the niqab in Azhar classrooms, examination halls and dormitories. Members of the council said that the council’s decree is consistent with Islamic legal provisions, since the niqab is not a duty; rather, women are required to cover their entire body with the exception of the face and hands (see paragraph 3 of this report).

32. General Abu Bakr al-Gindi, the chair of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, said in a press conference held on 10 October, “We cannot, under any circumstances, announce the number of Copts in Egypt, even if we had accurate data on the matter,” according to the daily al-Shorouk in its 11 October issue. The paper added that al-Gindi reiterated that “there is no data on this subject [the number of Copts] at all.” Al-Gindi’s statements came in response to a report issued on 1 October by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, part of the American Pew Charitable Trusts. The report stated that there are approximately 78.5 million Muslims in Egypt, who constitute 94.6% of the population. Religious minorities constitute only 5.4% of the Egyptian population, or about 4.5 million of Egypt’s 83 million inhabitants, according to the report.

33. The online newspaper al-Youm al-Sab’a reported on 4 November 2009 that Osama al-Sheikh, the chair of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, said in a seminar held at the media department of Cairo University on 2 November that “women in headscarves will not appear as presenters on the television screen.” Al-Sheikh also reportedly told attendees at the seminar, “You will not see headscarfed women on Egyptian television.” He justified his stance by saying, “The rule is that female television presenters not wear the headscarf, because exposing one’s hair is part of the social culture. Since we present media content, there is a conventional way of doing things. This does not mean that a woman in a headscarf is bad. They can work for other satellite channels.”

34. In his weekly address of Wednesday, 4 November, Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of Alexandria and Holy See of St. Mark, denied any intention of amending the bylaws for the selection of the Coptic patriarch. He reiterated that this decision was final and irrevocable.

It is thought that the Pope’s statements came in response to growing demands from secular Copts that the Orthodox Coptic patriarch be chosen via direct elections in which all members of the church participate, rather than the current system in which the patriarch is chosen by a vote among members of a committee made up of bishops.

35.  In a press conference held on 7 November, Minister of Awqaf Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq announced new rules for bringing mosques and community run prayer corners into the ministry, to prevent what he called a manipulation of the current rules and “to plug all the loopholes for those who do not follow their consciences in applying the bylaws set by the ministry.”

The daily al-Dustour reported on 8 November that the minister said, “The new measures involve the reconstitution of the survey committee to include the chair of the civic mosque department, an engineer, a legal advisor and the director of the department to which the mosque belongs. Each member of the committee shall sign his full name to the survey in a clear hand. No mosques or prayer corners shall be approved for survey if they are located in government buildings or if they are delineated by walls or established on agricultural land, appropriated land, government property or canals without the written consent of the competent authorities.”

In an interview with the daily Roze al-Youssef published on 24 October, the Minister of Awqaf had said, “The ministry is not building new mosques, but regular citizens are building on the condition that they comply with the conditions on mosque construction set by ministerial cabinet.” Zaqzouq said the most important conditions were the prohibition on the establishment of prayer corners on the ground floor of buildings; that there should be 500 meters separating each mosque; and that the ground floor of the mosque be established for services, such as a clinic or literacy classes. The mosque should also be no smaller than 175 square meters, the reason being that most people build on agricultural land and 175 square meters is equal to one qirat. According to the paper, the minister said, “After the bill for a unified call to prayer is complete, microphones in mosques and prayer corners will disappear because there will no longer be any use for them. Still, the important thing is that…we still have a big problem: namely, that we have 104,000 mosques, but we do not have 104,000 imams appointed by the Ministry of Awqaf. We have only 50,000 appointed imams. For the rest, we use mosque preachers only on Friday.”


36. Father Basanti, the bishop of Helwan and Maasara, said in an interview published in the daily newspaper al-Masry al-Youm on 11 November that Dr. Mufid Shehab, the Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, told him privately that “a quota [for Copts in representative councils] is not in your interest. You’re not incapable of succeeding in parliament and you’re not strangers.” The bishop said that Shehab promised him in return a new electoral system — namely, a list system — on the condition that Coptic candidates would be named to the top of the lists. He also promised the bishop that they would have 15-20 % representation in the parliament. Father Basanti added that Copts “will not change decisions inside the parliament, but rather stand heart and soul with the majority opinion, but this percentage will be an expression of Egypt’s eminence.”

For his part, in a press conference held to mark the opening of the new parliamentary session, held the same day the interview was published, Dr. Mufid Shehab denied making any promises to Father Basanti about the use of the proportional list system in the coming parliamentary elections. He reiterated that Copts are able to run for and succeed in elections without a quota, adding, “It is inconceivable for me to promise Father Basanti that we would use the proportional list system in the coming elections after President Mubarak already settled the matter,” referring to the use of the individual candidate system in the coming elections. The evening of the same day, Father Basanti commented on several satellite channels that Shehab had called him denying that they had had a conversation in which electoral promises were made. Basanti said that there was some confusion on his part without making further clarifications.

37. In an interview published in al-Watani al-Youm, the mouthpiece newspaper of the ruling National Democratic Party, on 24 November 2009, General Ahmed Diya'a al-Din, the governor of Minya, denied the existence of any sectarian strife in Minya. “Since he had the honor to be appointed governor of Minya, he has faced not one sectarian incident in Minya, contrary to reports,” the interview said. “He challenges anyone who alleges any sectarian incidents.” The governor defined his understanding of sectarian strife as “an incident motivated by a religious or faith-based viewpoint that compels partisans of a certain religion to attempt to bring people from one religious community into another religion through compulsion or against their will.” Addressing the problem at the Abu Fana Monastery, the governor said the issue was “a land dispute between two parties, one of which is Muslim and one of which is Christian. Everyday similar incidents take place, but between two Christian parties or two Muslim parties. Nevertheless, there is an insistence on calling everything sectarian. I see that the media is very keen to highlight the religion of each party for the reader, but I don’t know what religion adds here except sensationalism and mobilization.”

Asked why it is alleged that sectarian incidents are becoming more frequent in Minya, the governor responded, “There are many reasons. Minya has many bishoprics — nine in all. There is also the nature of the Minya citizen and his natural and religious instinct, evidenced by the fact that the call for monotheism came from here. Moreover, the population of Minya is greater than the population in governorates that hold both Muslims and Christians.” The governor added, “Some images of extremism have come from Minya —there was a curfew in place in Mallawi for ten years. The first and second defendants in the murder of President Sadat were also from Minya. These are the reasons. The media takes the natural consequences of social circumstances and inflates them.”

38. Egyptian legislative, executive and advocacy institutions criticized the outcome of a Swiss referendum banning the construction of minarets, held on 29 November; some 57.5% of the Swiss population supported the ban. The Swiss parliament and government rejected the initiative as a violation of the Constitution and freedom of expression, religious liberties and Swiss customs of tolerance.

The Office of Sheikh al-Azhar and al-Azhar University, along with the Dar al-Ifta and the Ministry of Awqaf, issued a joint statement on 1 December condemning the ban, saying it sowed seeds of hatred and discrimination against Muslims in Switzerland and noting that some far-right forces in other European countries had called for a similar referendum on the issue. The statement added that Muslims in Switzerland had taken no action to harm their good relations with Swiss society and it stressed the need to rein in this danger to avoid any negative fallout.

Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the mufti of Egypt, told the official MENA news agency on 30 November that the referendum was not only an assault on freedom of belief, but an attempt to insult the feelings of the Islamic community both in Switzerland and abroad. He warned that this dangerous precedent might deepen hatred and discrimination against Muslims because it would affect their houses of worship with no similar restrictions imposed on any other religion and its buildings. The mufti said the measure was inconsistent with freedom of belief and conscience as guaranteed by the Swiss Constitution.

In a session held on 8 December led by Dr. Ahmed Fathi Surour, the People’s Assembly condemned the decree to ban the construction of minarets. MPs stressed the need to confront the decision “which constitutes an unjustified attack on human rights and the faith of Muslims.” They asked the Swiss government and parliament to reconsider the ban insofar as “it strongly conflicts with the principles of the Swiss state, which is founded on neutrality.” The Speaker of the People’s Assembly rejected a proposal from a joint committee comprised of members from the committees for Religious Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Human Rights to send an Egyptian parliamentary delegation to Switzerland to discuss the crisis, saying this was the mission of the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union and that a discussion of the decree was not relevant to the Swiss authorities since it was the result of a popular referendum. As such, he said, the only forum for a discussion of the decree was the European Court of Human Rights. In a joint meeting on 16 December, the three committees decided to form a delegation to travel to Switzerland, meet with Swiss MPs and confront the party that called for the referendum. The committees also urged Muslim and Arab businessmen to withdraw their funds from Swiss banks.


39. On 2 December 2009, the online newspaper al-Youm al-Sab’a reported that the Awqaf department in Alexandria, in cooperation with the ruling NDP, had allocated LE144,000 for the development and renovation of 24 mosques and churches in the governorate. The website quoted Mohamed Abu Hatab, the director of the Awqaf Department in Alexandria, as saying, “This budget comes from the NDP General Secretariat in Cairo. The department then held a meeting to examine the needs of the mosques and churches targeted by this development plan.”

The website also reported that Engineer Farag Amer, a member of the Shura Council for the NDP, said, “The sum is divided in three payments of LE72,008, LE67,008 and LE5,000, for the Church of the Virgin and St. Paul in al-Hadra, the Ibad al-Rahman Mosque in New Hadra, and mosques and churches in the districts of al-Attarin, Kom al-Dikka, Muharram Bek, Ghorbal and Bab Sharq. He added that the distribution of funds was approved by the Awqaf Committee."

40. On 15 December 2009, the General Secretariat of the Islamic Research Council of al-Azhar ruled to withdraw al-Azhar’s monthly magazine for the month of Dhu al-Hijja 1430 and its special supplement, titled “An Academic Report,” by Dr. Mohamed Imara, a member of the council. In a statement published in several newspapers, the secretariat said that the issue was being withdrawn from the market because “some of our Coptic brethren took the contents of the supplement as an insult.” The secretary-general of the council, Sheikh Ali Abd al-Baqi, reiterated to the press “the full, strong respect that the Islamic Research Council has for the Christian faith.” He added that the council holds for Christians in Egypt and abroad “respect and esteem, and it was not intended at any moment to insult any of the dear children of Egypt, since Muslims and Christians in Egypt are part of one social fabric.”

The free supplement by Dr. Imara, a copy of which was obtained by the EIPR, included sections referring to evidence of “the perversion of the Torah and Gospels,” according to the writer, which sparked criticisms from Egyptian Christians who thought that al-Azhar’s publication of the pamphlet was an insult to Christians. The most prominent public criticisms came from Dr. Safwat al-Bayadi, the head of the evangelical community, in an open letter to the Sheikh of al-Azhar. A lawyer filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor (no. 21528/2009) against Dr. Imara on 9 December, accusing him of defaming Christianity. The prosecutor’s office took the lawyer’s statement, but no other action had been taken at the time this report was written.

41. In a statement released on 24 December, the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta said that 400,392 fatwas had been issued in 2009, “comprising everything of concern to the Muslim in all aspects of life.” In the same period, the Dar al-Ifta also reviewed 160 death sentences issued against those convicted for various offenses, among them murder, rape and drug trafficking. According to the statement, “The mufti gave his legal opinion on some of them, but others are still pending to guarantee justice for the convicted.” The statement said that Dar al-Ifta had received 2,097 written requests for fatwas, 68,879 oral requests, 248,680 phone requests and 82,736 internet requests.