Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide

by Paul Marshall

  In earlier years, Baha’is were allowed to list their religion on identity papers, but the Ministry of the Interior declared that only the three “heavenly” religions—Islam, Christianity, and Judaism—could be recorded on the new identity cards.8 Since Baha’is would not lie about their religion, they were forced to go without such cards. One Baha’i, Diya Nur al-Din, had a handwritten birth certificate from 1982 stating his Baha’i faith. In 2001, his new (and compulsory) computerized birth certificate replaced this with the word “other.” Human Rights Watch reports:

  In his case, because he has a Muslim name, CSD officers told him he had no practical choice but to identify as Muslim. Diya’s 23-year-old sister, Sama, has a dash in the religion entry on her birth certificate. Her 2001 computerized ID card, however, identifies her as Muslim. Their father, Nur al-Din Mustafa, has a birth certificate that says he is Baha’i and a paper ID card with a dash in the religion line. Their mother, Tahra, has a paper ID card that identifies her as Christian, in accordance with her family name, despite the fact that her birth certificate leaves her religion blank, indicating that she comes from a Baha’i family.9

  Without identity cards, one cannot register children in school, open bank accounts, or establish a business. Law 143/1994 requires all citizens by age sixteen to obtain an identification card featuring a new national identification number. Those discovered without identity cards during random police inspections are detained until the card can be provided. This has forced many Baha’is to stay at home in fear of being arrested.

  Baha’is proposed that the Interior Ministry write “other” in the religion box on the cards, but the Ministry refused and instead offered passports, which contain no religious identification. This led to speculation that the government wanted to make Baha’is emigrate to avoid ongoing insecurity. Baha’is then filed a lawsuit to revoke the Ministry’s decision and, on April 4, 2006, won its case. The following month, in preparation for an appeal, the Ministry consulted the IRC of Al-Azhar University, which issued a fatwa declaring the Baha’i faith a “heresy,” and referenced its 1985 opinion labeling them as “apostates” who supported Zionism and imperialism. On October 16, 2006, the pro-government newspaper Roz Al-Youssef, in addition to declaring Baha’is apostates, claimed that they threatened public order and advised that they be “watched carefully, isolated and monitored.”10 On December 16, 2006, the Supreme Administrative Court overturned the lower court ruling, arguing that the government could place restrictions “respecting public order and morals” and that listing the Baha’i faith in identity documents constituted a religious rite that violated public order, which in Egypt is based on sharia. It then attacked what it said were the heretical characteristics of the Baha’i faith.11

  The Baha’is brought a new lawsuit represented by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), asking the Court of Administrative Justice to recognize that Baha’is have a right to obtain documents without any religious affiliation and without being forced to falsely identify as Muslim or Christian. On January 29, 2008, the court ruled that the plaintiffs Hussein Hosny Bekeit and Raouf Hendy Halim could have a dash placed in the religion entry of their IDs.12 However, Baha’is still reported barriers in enrolling their children in school, and, by July 2008, none had received the documents that the court ordered to be issued. In summer 2008, the Ministry of Religious Endowments distributed a book to all mosques in Egypt attacking the Baha’is. On August 1, 2008, Al-Akhbar newspaper reported that the then sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyed El-Tantawi, had repeated his previous assertion that recognizing the Baha’i community would be “a departure from Islam and the teachings of divine religions … and that no one can be allowed to recognize it as a religion. …”13

  Despite this resistance, on March 16, 2009, a Supreme Administrative Court decision, not subject to appeal, upheld a right to legal identification without stipulating a religion. Hossam Bahgat, executive director of the EIPR, said it was “a major victory for all Egyptians fighting for a state where all citizens must enjoy equal rights regardless of their religion or belief.”14 The Interior Ministry ordered that civil status regulations be revised accordingly.15 On August 8, 2009, Imad and Nancy Rauf Hindi each received an identity card that had a dash in the religion section, so that in Egypt, Baha’is are now sometimes jokingly referred to as the “-” religion.16 By the end of 2009, some seventeen identification cards and seventy birth certificates had been issued to Baha’is.17

  This new identity card represents an important step; however, the government, while granting Baha’is exemption from having their religion on their documents, still has not included the word “Baha’i” and so still refuses to officially recognize the Baha’i community.18 Furthermore, the new national IDs can only be used by unmarried Baha’is: since the authorities still resist recognizing Baha’i marital status, even divorced or widowed Baha’is have still not been permitted to have new ID cards with the religion status line remaining blank.19

  Other forms of persecution continue, including the attack on the village of al-Shuraniya, described above. In April 2009, Ahmed Omar Hashim of the parliamentary Joint Commission on Defense, National Security, Arab Affairs, and Religious Endowments, and the previous president of Al-Azhar University and ruling party Religious Committee head, claimed that Baha’is “pose a greater threat to national security than extremists and terrorists because they are a product of Zionism,” and the Joint Commission demanded that a law be passed declaring Baha’ism illegal. Extraordinarily, Hashim cited the burning of Baha’i homes as evidence of the dangers created by Baha’ism.20

  Copts

  Coptic Christians are often attacked after facing accusations of “insulting Islam.” On January 1, 2000, after a dispute in a store involving two Muslims and a Copt named Surial Gayed Isshak, the Christian community in the village of El-Khosheh was attacked by an outraged mob. Twenty-one Christians were murdered, one Muslim was accidentally killed, and scores of homes and businesses were destroyed. On February 27, 2003, two men were sentenced in connection with the death of the Muslim man, but all ninety-three other defendants were acquitted. The longest sentence given was to Isshak, who received three years of hard labor for “insulting a heavenly religion”; Amnesty International categorized Isshak as a “prisoner of conscience.” The Egyptian government also leveled charges against people who tried to investigate and publicize the attacks, including the area’s Coptic bishop, Bishop Wissa, who was charged with, among other things, “insulting a heavenly religion.”21

  In October 2005, a mob of at least 5,000 people surrounded St. George’s Church in Alexandria after the newspaper Al-Midan reported on October 13 that a play had “insulted Islam” by featuring a Copt who resisted becoming a Muslim. The play had been performed at St. George’s two years earlier but had allegedly appeared on a newly discovered CD. In the riots, four people died and ninety were injured. There were attacks on seven other churches in Alexandria, as well as on cars and Coptic businesses, and a mob surrounded another church as far away as Cairo. In the days following, anonymous taggers marked Coptic houses in Alexandria with crosses, in what was generally assumed to be a sign to aid future attackers. Many Christians remained home in fear. Death threats against Alexandria priests and against Coptic Pope Shenouda III also appeared on extremist websites.22

  On August 8, 2007, Egyptian security forces arrested Adel Fawzi Faltas, head of the Canada-based Middle East Christian Association (MECA), and his associates, photographer Peter Ezzat Mounir and Adeeb Ramses Kosman. Authorities took the three men to Lazoghly prison, State Security headquarters. They were accused of distributing religiously defamatory books and of “insulting Islam” on the United Copts website, which is based in the United Kingdom. MECA had been advocating that Egyptian converts from Islam to Christianity should be able to change their religious identity legally. A few days before his arrest, Faltas had interviewed a convert from Islam to Christianity on the Internet. On November 5, 2007, they were released. Howeve
r, on November 10, police in Cairo arrested two other members of the group, Wagih Yaob and Victor George. On November 10, 2007, MECA’s lawyer, Mamdouh Azmy, was also arrested.23

  Converts from Islam

  The late Sheik Muhammad Tantawi of Al-Azhar University said, “It is forbidden for any Muslim to change his religion in Egypt,” and, on May 1, 2007, the Sout el Oma newspaper reported that Interior Minister Habib el-Adly had sent a memo to the Administrative Court arguing that Islam, as the state religion, demands the death of any Muslim man who leaves the faith, while a female apostate “should be imprisoned and beaten every three days until she returns to Islam.”24 In early July 2010, Sheikh Youssef Al-Badri, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, an affiliate of the Egyptian Ministry of Al-Awqaf (Islamic Endowments) stated on state television that converts from Islam “should be killed.”25 Even if such prescriptions are not carried out, converts may face forced annulments and the loss of child custody rights; with regard to female converts, Egypt’s highest court has ruled that “a woman apostate does not originally have the right to marry either a Muslim or a non-Muslim; she is considered dead, and the dead is [sic] not subject to marriage.”26

  Faced with such official statements and the risk of attack, converts may avoid going to church altogether or surreptitiously leave their houses to attend services, and some Christian women don veils to go home when services are over. In addition to threats and violence from extremists and family members, converts face official legal hardship. Rather than protecting them, security officials often join in the mistreatment. Converts can be charged under Article 98(f) of the penal code, which prohibits using religion to “promote or advocate extremist ideologies, ignite strife, degrade any of the heavenly religions, or harm national unity or social peace.”27 Also, because their very existence may cause unrest among some Muslims, the police may accuse them of causing religious division. Even without formal charges, under Egypt’s emergency law, police can hold converts indefinitely. Convert Osama Gomaa Maatouq was first detained by State Security on April 11, 2008, and, as of July 17, 2010, had been held without charge or official registration despite several court orders that he be released. In 2010, Egyptian embassies who had been contacted by European members of Parliament, claimed that Maatouq had been released, but it appears that he was moved to a new prison, Minya Al-Amoma, under the name Abdel-Latif Gomaa Maatouq. Human rights advocates believe that State Security may have altered his name so he would not show up in inquiries into their records.28

  Between October 18 and 24, 2003, security forces detained twenty-two people for allegedly creating false Christian identity papers for other former Muslims and for themselves. Those arrested were mostly women. During interrogation, the police pressured them to return to Islam and sought to find the names of other converts and people who had helped them. The detainees were all beaten, several were tortured, and at least one of the women, Mariam Girgis Makar, 30, suffered sexual abuse. Another detainee, Isam Abdul Fathr, died while in custody. Makar, a mother of two young daughters, who had moved from Cairo to Alexandria after converting to Christianity with her husband, was the last to be released, on bail, on December 3, 2003.29

  Following the crackdown, on October 26, 2003, an association, the Christian Converts of Egypt, issued a declaration on their plight, calling for international attention and stating, “For many years, we have been struggling for the simplest of our human rights, the freedom of belief and the freedom of worship. We have been imprisoned, tortured, followed by the security police, and subjected to all forms of abuse for our faith.…” Such a declaration is a most unusual step, since converts usually hide and avoid drawing attention to themselves.

  As with the Baha’is, one of the major problems for Christian converts is the government’s refusal to change their religion on their identity cards. Hence, many Christians are treated as if they are Muslims. This is especially a problem because Egyptian family law is based on religion, and sharia applies to any family in which at least one parent is Muslim.30 Since sharia law forbids Muslim women to marry outside their religion, Christian women identified as Muslim cannot marry Christian men.31 Desperate to marry, they may acquire forged Christian IDs. When the police discover this, they have the authority to forcibly divorce such women from their husbands. At other times, the women may be arrested and tortured. Recently, the government has been cracking down on marriages with forged documents. On October 12, 2008, Coptic priest Metaos Wahba, of Saint Mary Church in Giza, was sentenced to five years imprisonment for alleged “forgery,” since he had performed the wedding of a Christian man and a woman who had converted to Christianity from Islam. He was convicted despite having been unaware that the woman’s papers were forged. Two witnesses at the wedding were also sentenced to five years imprisonment for “forgery.” The newlyweds have gone into hiding.32

  Among the many converts persecuted in Egypt is Gasir Mohammed Mahmoud, who converted to Christianity in 2003. When his family learned of this, his adoptive father sought the help of local Muslim sheikhs, who issued death threats against Gasir for apostasy. His mother then asked police to protect him from being killed, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. Instead, Gasir was detained by security officials and tortured, including reportedly having his toenails ripped out. On January 10, 2005, he was forcibly confined to Cairo’s El-Khanka mental hospital and kept in solitary confinement. Mahmoud recalled, “They filled the room with water, to prevent me from sleeping.” After international publicity, he was released June 9, 2005, but he remained in hiding.33

  On April 6, 2005, Baha al-Aqqad, then fifty-six, and a recent convert to Christianity, was arrested and held in Doqqi prison. He was never informed exactly what he had been accused of, although the repeated interrogations centered on “insulting Islam.” He was also beaten severely by another prisoner over rumors that he was converting others to Christianity and baptizing them. His lawyer was told that he was being held under emergency laws on suspicion of “committing blasphemy against Islam” or “insulting a heavenly religion.” Though he was not formally charged, his detention was renewed every forty-five days until he was released without explanation on April 28, 2007.34

  In 2002, when her family discovered that Siham al-Sharqawi had fallen in love with a Copt at tourism school in 2000, they beat her and continued to do so whenever they suspected she had managed to see him. On October 28, 2003, she was tied to a dining room chair and beaten but managed to escape from the home. On August 26, 2004, she was baptized, and three months later, on November 22, al-Sharqawi married her Christian boyfriend using a false Christian name to procure a marriage certificate. Subsequently, she was forced to stay inside her home in Alexandria to avoid being seen. She later moved to Luxor and then to Qena, where, on November 22, 2007, police arrested her. Witnesses said that police treated the woman like a prostitute although it was her third wedding anniversary. She was interrogated for four days, insulted, and threatened with beatings.35

  Some Christians may not realize that the government considers them Muslim until years after their conversion. In the case of sisters Shadia and Bahia El-Sisi, for example, a conviction came forty-five years after the alleged offense. The background was that, in 1962, their father had left home and converted to Islam. Three years later, he moved back home, reconverted to Christianity, and obtained forged documents stating that he was Christian. In 1996, this was discovered by police, who detained him and told him that he was a Muslim and that therefore his daughters were also Muslim. Neither sister knew of their father’s doings decades before, and their identity documents had always listed them as Christians. Shadia, who had been married to a Christian for twenty-five years, was threatened with forced divorce. In November 2007, she was sentenced to three years in jail, purportedly for committing fraud on her identity documents since, in 1982, she had listed “Christian” on her marriage certificate. In early 2008, she was released when the attorney general said that the judgment was based on false information. Bahia, who
went into hiding when Shadia was detained, came out when her sister was released and was then tried and convicted for identifying herself as Christian on her marriage certificate. She was freed pending an appeal. If she continues to be regarded as Muslim, then her husband will be forced to convert, or their marriage will be annulled by the court. In that case, her children will be reregistered as Muslim, with her daughters also facing possible involuntary marriage annulment.36 In principle, this procedure of retroactive forcible conversion could carry on through many generations.

  On December 17, 2008, twenty-two-year old Martha Samuel Makkar was arrested at Cairo’s airport on charges of forging official documents as she attempted to leave for Russia with her husband and two sons, aged four and two. Five years earlier, she had converted to Christianity, changed her name from Zeinab Said Abdel-Aziz, and married a Christian, Fadel Thabet. Subsequently, not only was she persecuted by the police, but also her family attempted to kill her. There are reports that Makkar was sexually assaulted by Egyptian police at El-Nozha police station; at the National Security office in Heliopolis, she was assaulted by other prisoners while in detention; and she was also tortured to force her to return to Islam.37 On January 24, 2009, she was granted bail but not before the judge said she should be killed for leaving Islam.38