V. Laws, Decrees, and Political Developments

24. On 6 April 2008, the People’s Assembly approved Law 113/2008 on “Preserving the Sanctity of Places of Worship”, following a broad public debate between opponents and supporters of the law since the bill was first proposed to the parliament in December 2007. Article 1 of the law bans “demonstrations and the organization thereof for any reason inside places of worship, their courtyards, or their subsidiary buildings.” The law punishes offenders with up to one year in prison and/or a fine of up to LE5,000. It penalizes “anyone who takes part in the demonstration” to up to six months in prison and/or a fine of LE2,000. “Anyone who incites to a demonstration or encourages people to join it” faces the same punishment as a person who organizes the demonstration “even if the incitement has no effect.”

Observers believe the aim of the law is to stop the anti-government demonstrations that are increasingly organized outside of al-Azhar Mosque and the seat of the Orthodox Patriarchate. The law was supported by the Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs and the head of the Coptic Evangelical Church; it was opposed by Muslim Brother MPs. Pope Shenouda III also expressed his opposition to the law in a televised interview on 8 January 2008, noting that demonstrations are “a legitimate means of conveying problems to the competent authorities as long as such expression of opinion does not cause harm and does not spill into the street.”

25. On 6 May 2008, Decree 17/2008 of the Mufti of the Arab Republic of Egypt was published in the Official Gazette, issuing the new Finance and Auditing Statute of the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta’. The new statute makes Dar al-Ifta’ “financially, technically, and administratively independent” of the Ministry of Justice and constitutes the implementation of a cabinet decree issued on 1 November 2007. The statute stipulates that Dar al-Ifta has an independent budget allocated by the state budget. It also lists the four objectives of Dar al-Ifta’, including “to strengthen the principle of religious authority (al-marji’iya al-deeniya) in the hearts of the people in light of the many ongoing questions that face the world and their repercussions on the domestic sphere.” The objectives also include training Egyptian and foreign missions in issuing fatwas, offering opinions on death sentences as stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Code, and determining the beginning of the Arab months.

26. The daily al-Ahram reported on 1 May 2008, that Minister of Awqaf Dr. Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq had issued a decree bringing 493 community mosques in 24 provinces under the ministry’s supervision. With this decree, “the ministry now oversees 100,501 mosques.”

27. During the reporting period, EIPR researchers documented four new presidential decrees on churches, all of them regarding already existing churches. Two of the decrees concern the Coptic Orthodox Church, the third was issued for the Coptic Evangelical Church, and the fourth for the Coptic Catholic Church. The details of each decree are as follows:

a. Decree 121/2008, issued 3 May 2008, concerning the already existing Evangelical Nahdat al-Qadasa Church, located in al-Gaouli in the Manfalout district of Assyout.

b. Decree 132/2008, issued 7 May 2008, concerning the already existing Coptic Orthodox Mar Guirguis Church, located in Ballout in the al-Qousiya district of Assyout.

c. Decree 158/2008, issued 22 May 2008, concerning the already existing Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin, located near al-Nawamis and al-Marawna in the al-Bedari district of Assyout.

d. Decree 162/2008, issued 28 May 2008, concerning the already existing Coptic Catholic Mar Guirguis Church, located in the hamlet of al-Baqatra, in the village of al-Shuraniya in the al-Maragha district of Sohag.

28. Al-Masry al-Youm daily newspaper reported on 23 June 2008 that the Coptic Church had started an electronic database to record the personal information of Copts, including the number of members of each Coptic family, their dates of birth, and their jobs; the database is to be continuously updated. The paper added that the aim of the program is to “ascertain the reliability of information for those seeking marriage permits and seeking to determine the absence of religious barriers to marriage, in addition to the possibilities it offers for conducting a census of Copts.” The Egyptian government has refused to reveal the number of Copts in Egypt since the late 1990s.

29. On 20 May 2008, the General Denominational Council (al-Majlis al-Milli) of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate issued a decree “Modifying the Personal Status Code for Orthodox Copts.” The decree introduces several fundamental changes to the Code issued by the Council in 1938, which is used by family courts to resolve disputes between Orthodox Copts. The changes impose further restrictions on the right of Copts to obtain a divorce and permission to remarry after a divorce by reducing the specific cases listed in the Code under which the family courts are allowed to grant divorces to Copts. Nevertheless, as of the writing of this report, family courts continued to operate in accordance with the old Code.

Since he assumed the papacy in 1971, Pope Shenouda III has refused to recognize articles in the 1938 Code which he believes violate Biblical texts, particularly those allowing divorce for reasons other than adultery. On 1 March 2008, the Supreme Administrative Court issued a final ruling requiring the Coptic Orthodox Church to permit Copts who had obtained a court divorce to remarry. Church leaders declared their refusal to heed the ruling and instead began taking action to amend the 1938 Code, Article 69 of which provided the legal grounds for the Supreme Administrative Court ruling (see paragraph 9, First Quarterly Report 2008).

30. On 9 June 2008, the President issued Decree 168/2008 appointing Judge Nabil Mirhom Morcos Suleiman as head of the State Council (Egypt’s administrative judiciary). The decree put an end to speculations circulating on Coptic websites since the former president of the council, Sayed Nofal, died in May that Mirhom would be ruled out because he is a Christian. Judge Mirhom is an elected member of the General Denominational Council of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate. Prior to his appointment, he was the first deputy head of the State Council.

31. On 29 May 2008, the Islamic Research Council issued a ruling recommending the banning and confiscation of several books on the ground that they conflict with Islam. Among the books was Islamic thinker Gamal al-Banna’s Muslim Women between the Liberation of the Quran and the Restriction of the Scholars, which was banned because it contains “juridical ramblings and opinions on women’s dress at odds with the rules of Islamic law.”

32. In April, May, and June, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued its efforts to raise the issue of “defamation of religions” in international forums:

a. In the second ministerial meeting of the Asia-Middle East Dialogue, held in Sharm al-Sheikh on 5 and 6 April 2008, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu al-Gheit stressed the importance of Asian-Middle Eastern cooperation to combat common challenges, among them “the defamation of religion.” The meeting’s agenda included a special panel to discuss the issue, during which a proposal was made to stress “the importance of devising a strategy for joint defense of Islam and its symbols and underscoring the importance of the role played by the Muslims of Asia in this respect.” The Action Plan issued by the meeting contained an agreement to conduct a roundtable discussion of the issue in 2008/2009.

b. During the fourth meeting of the European Union (EU)-Egypt Association Council, held in Luxembourg on 28 April 2008, the Egyptian Foreign Minister expressed “Egypt’s utmost displeasure at activities by some in Europe to undermine Islam and its symbols and Arab and Islamic culture.” He added, “While Egypt believes in freedom of expression as a fundamental freedom, the exercise of this freedom must be accompanied by maturity and responsibility.”

c. On 11 June 2008, a meeting of senior officials was held in Helsinki, Finland to discuss the final report of the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy, a series of political dialogues started in 2003 on international problem-solving cooperation. According to a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the meeting Egypt supported the inclusion of a section in the closing report, which will be presented to the UN Secretary-General, on “the defamation of religion as a hateful phenomenon that harms religions.”

33. On 19 May 2008, the Foreign Relations Committee in the People’s Assembly called on Arab and Islamic countries to work towards the establishment of a treaty to criminalize offense to religion. According to a report in the daily al-Ahram on 20 May, the committee also asked Arab and Islamic parliaments to amend their penal codes to criminalize offenses to revealed religions, whether such an offense is committed at home or abroad.

34. On 3 April 2008, the EU Commission issued its first progress report on the implementation of the joint Action Plan adopted in March 2007 in the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy. The report contained no mention of the status of freedom of religion in Egypt, with the exception of one reference to the court ruling issued in January allowing Baha’is to obtain personal identification documents without any mention of religion. In a memorandum submitted to European Commission officials on 7 May 2008, twelve Egyptian rights organizations criticized the weakness of the report and the lack of any cohesive analysis of human rights problems in Egypt, including failures to address religious freedom issues.

35. On 28 April 2008, the fourth meeting of the EU-Egypt Association Council was held in Luxembourg. Regarding freedom of religion and belief, the EU statement issued after the meeting welcomed the ruling issued by the Supreme Administrative Court in Egypt that allowed Christians who had converted to Islam to revert to Christianity, as well as the ruling giving Baha’i Egyptians the right to obtain personal identification documents without mention of religion. The EU called on the Egyptian government “to take all necessary steps to fight discrimination on all grounds and to promote tolerance” including in matters related to religious and belief expressions and minorities.

36. On 2-3 June, 2008, the first meeting of the subcommittee on political affairs, created jointly by the EU and the Egyptian government in 2007, was held in Brussels. Part of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of human rights and democracy. The Egyptian government was represented in the meeting by a delegation from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Interior, and International Cooperation. According to the information report issued by the EU after the meeting, the agenda included a discussion of discrimination, during which the Egyptian government stated that it “takes very seriously” all recommendations on discrimination found in the annual reports issued by Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights, including those regarding a unified law for the construction of houses of worship and matters related to personal identification documents. The Egyptian government raised the issue of the EU’s treatment of Muslim minorities, immigrants, and asylum seekers in Europe. The report stated that both parties expressed a readiness to hold a separate meeting of experts to discuss discrimination in more depth.

37. On 24 June 2008, Republican congressman Frank Wolf introduced a resolution to the US House of Representatives, titled “Calling on the Egyptian Government to respect human rights and freedoms of religion and expression in Egypt.” Fourteen other members of Congress from the Republican and Democratic parties sponsored the bill in addition to Wolf, and it was forwarded to the House Foreign Affairs Committee for debate.

The seven-page bill, H. Res. 1303, addresses the issues of torture in police stations, freedom of the press, restrictions on civil society, academic freedoms, the application of the Emergency Law, the status of imprisoned al-Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour, and the treatment of refugees. Regarding freedom of religion and belief, the bill addresses discrimination against Copts and Baha’is, as well as security harassment of Shiites, Qur'anis, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other religious minorities and the vilification of Jews in the official and semi-official media. The resolution asks the Egyptian government to allow the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief to visit Egypt, and it urges the US President and Secretary of State to give priority to issues of human rights and religious freedoms in their meetings with Egyptian officials.

38. In June 2008, hundreds of Copts living abroad organized several demonstrations in European cities to express their solidarity with Egyptian Copts in light of the recent violence against them. The demonstrations began in the Netherlands on 21 June, followed by France the next day, and Greece on 26 June. Similar demonstrations were planned for July in other cities in Europe and North America. Several leaders in the Egyptian church rejected these demonstrations in press statements, asking Copts not to take part in them.

39. In late May 2008, a group of Egypt-born Jews who live in Israel announced that they had cancelled a trip they planned to take to Egypt. The trip organizers said that the visit was cancelled because they could not find a hotel that would accept them; their reservations in one hotel were cancelled after criticisms of the visit in the Egyptian media. Egyptian newspapers and television programs reported that the purpose of the visit was to demand the return of Jewish-owned property confiscated in the 1950s and 60s, which the trip organizers denied. The travel program included a lecture by the Israeli ambassador in Cairo and a visit to the Israeli Academic Center. The head of the Jewish community in Egypt denied any ties between Egyptian Jews and the visit.