I. Court Rulings and Trials

1. On 12 October 2008, the Giza Criminal Court sentenced five people, among them a Christian priest, to five years in prison each on charges related to the falsifying of official documents. The court began hearing the case (no. 4829/2007 Criminal- Qesm Imbaba) in June 2008, after the defendants were charged with helping a Muslim woman obtain falsified identification documents proving that she had converted to Christianity, in order to enable her to marry a Christian man in 2005. These falsified documents were used to draw up a marriage contract and obtain a passport, which the woman used to travel to Jordan with her husband (see paragraph 8 of the Second Quarterly Report, 2008)

The verdict was issued in absentia for all the defendants (including the married couple), except for the priest, Mata'os Abbas Wahba, who is currently serving his sentence in the Tora Prison on the outskirts of Cairo.

After the sentencing, several newspapers reported that Pope Shenouda III had criticized the verdict and they quoted him expressing his “strong displeasure” at the sentencing of the priest. He also announced that he had hired an attorney to appeal the ruling. On 15 November 2008, attorney Ramsis al-Naggar appealed the ruling with the Court of Cassation (case no. 220/2008). The court had not set a date for the appeal hearing before this report was issued.

2. In a similar case, the Shubra Criminal Court on 11 November 2008 sentenced three people to three years in prison each (case no. 12201/2006 Criminal -Northern Cairo -Shubra). The court convicted the three defendants for helping a Muslim woman obtain a national identity card containing falsified information in 2002 to facilitate her marriage to a Christian. The defendants also served as witnesses on the marriage contract with the false information (see paragraph 8 of the First Quarterly Report, 2008).

On 17 January 2008, the court had issued a ruling in the same case in absentia, sentencing the three defendants and the fugitive couple to ten years each in prison. The re-trial began on 12 February with the attendance of the three defendants, who are currently serving their sentence in the Marg General Prison. The defendants’ attorneys appealed the ruling before the Court of Cassation, but a date for the appeal hearing had not been set before this report was issued.

3. On 11 November 2008, the Court of Administrative Justice in Cairo, headed by Judge Mohamed Ahmad Atiya, issued a ruling requiring the Civil Status Department in the Interior Ministry to issue a national identity card to Baha'i citizen Hadi Hosny al-Qusheiry and place a dash (—) in the slot designated for religious affiliation. The EIPR had filed a suit (case no. 14124/62) in January 2008 after al-Qusheiry 21, was suspended from the College of Agriculture at Alexandria University, where he was registered as a third-year student. The university suspended the student when he failed to provide deferment papers for his compulsory military service. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense refused to issue the papers because the student did not have a national identity card, and since the student had a birth certificate documenting that he was born to Egyptian Baha'i parents, the Civil Status Department refused to issue him an identity card if he did not change his religion to either Islam or Christianity.

The same court, headed by its former chief judge, Mohamed al-Husseini, issued two similar rulings on 29 January 2008, affirming for the first time the right of Baha'i citizens to obtain official identification documents without mention of religious affiliation. The Interior Ministry had not implemented these rulings before this report was issued in January 2009 (see paragraph 1 of the First Quarterly Report, 2008).

4. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights decided in its biannual session, held in Abuja, Nigeria from 10 to 24 November 2008, to consider a complaint filed against the Egyptian government regarding the case of two Egyptian children, Mario and Andrew Ramsis. After their father converted to Islam, the children’s religion was changed from Christianity to Islam and their Christian mother lost custody of them. The complaint (no. 363/2008), filed before the African Union's main human rights body, accuses the Egyptian government of violating four articles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which was ratified by the Egyptian government and the People’s Assembly in 1984. The children’s mother, Kamilia Lotfy, was a victim of religious discrimination (Article 2) and her right to equal protection under the law (Article 3) was also violated when she was deprived of custody of her twin sons. The petition also accuses the government of violating the children’s right to freedom of religion and belief (Article 8) and its obligation to respect the rights of children (Article 18.3). The Commission accepted the petition and will begin hearing the case in its next session in May 2009; the complainants and the Egyptian government must file their preliminary briefs before 8 March 2009. The suit was filed by the EIPR and the London-based INTERIGHTS- International Center for the Legal Protection of Human Rights.

On 24 September 2008, the Alexandria Appellate Court issued a final ruling transferring custody of Mario and Andrew (both aged 14) to their father, who had converted to Islam in 2000 and changed his children’s religion on their official documents in 2006. The court based its ruling on an interpretation of the principles of Islamic law, although Article 20 of the Personal Status Law states that children should remain in the custody of their mother until the age of 15 and contains no reference to the mother’s religion (see paragraph 8 of the Third Quarterly Report, 2008). On 5 November 2008, the children’s mother filed a request with the Public Prosecutor (no. 18308/2008) asking him to appeal the custody ruling. No action had been taken before this report was issued.

5. On 29 November 2008, the Public Prosecutor issued a temporary injunction against the three-year prison sentence handed down to Bahiya al-Sisi, who was convicted of knowingly using falsified documents, pending an appeal before the Court of Cassation. The Shubra al-Kheima Criminal Court issued the prison sentence on 20 September 2008 (case no. 14223/1996) after Bahiya al-Sisi was convicted of obtaining a personal identity card in 1994 that documented her religion as Christianity, although her father had converted to Islam in 1994 (see paragraph 7 of the Third Quarterly Report, 2008).

After Bahiya al-Sisi was released, the Public Prosecutor appealed the ruling before the Court of Cassation on 24 December 2008. Al-Sisi’s attorney filed a similar appeal on 13 November 2008. No date had been set to hear the appeal before this report was issued.

Egyptians against Religious Discrimination, a group of volunteer activists working on religious tolerance, issued a statement in solidarity with Bahiya al-Sisi on 5 November calling on the Public Prosecutor to suspend her prison sentence pending the appeal before the Court of Cassation.

6. On 18 December 2008, the Court of Administrative Justice in Alexandria ruled that Fathi Labib Youssef had the right to obtain a personal identity card documenting his re-conversion to Christianity from Islam. The plaintiff filed his case (no. 2293/60) in November 2005 against the Prime Minister, the Interior Minister, and the head of the Civil Status Department, asking that a decree refusing to recognize his change of religion be overturned. Youssef converted from Christianity to Islam in 1974 and then re-converted to Christianity in May 2005 following the approval of the clerical council of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

In its written ruling, the court referred to the obligation to recognize equal rights and duties for all citizens and the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of religion or creed. The court reasoned that ruling otherwise would violate the constitutionally guaranteed principle of freedom of belief. It added that the Civil Status Department must document any change to a citizen’s civil status on his personal identity card, as long as the change is supported by a document issued by the competent authority, so that the identity card faithfully express a citizen’s true civil status.

On 9 February 2008, the Supreme Administrative Court, headed by Judge al-Sayid Noufal, ruled for the first time in favor of 12 Christian citizens seeking personal identity cards that document their re-conversion to Christianity from Islam (see paragraph 2 of the First Quarterly Report, 2008), but as of January 2009 the Interior Ministry had not yet implemented any of these rulings. The Supreme Constitutional Court is currently hearing a case (no. 92/30) referred to it by the Court of Administrative Justice in Cairo, which is seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of Article 47 of the Civil Status Law. That article allows citizens to change their religion on official documents without restriction (see paragraph 3, First Quarterly Report and paragraph 3, Third Quarterly Report, 2008).

7. The daily al-Ahram reported on 29 December 2008 that the Cairo Personal Status Appellate Court issued an unprecedented ruling “in favor of a Christian woman’s right to custody of her Muslim children as long as the Muslim father knew she was of the Christian faith when they married.” According to the newspaper, the court “gave custody of an Egyptian child to his French mother, arguing that the Child Law states that the protection and best interest of the child takes precedence in all decisions regarding childhood.” The text of the ruling was not available when this report was issued.