Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide

by Paul Marshall

  123. Hiedeh Farmani, “Iran’s Khamenei Issues Stern Warning to Opposition,” AFP, December 13, 2009; Anne Barker, “Iran Arrests Hundreds of Dissidents,” ABC.net, December 30, 2009, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/30/2782418.htm.

  124. Nazila Fathi, “Protestors Defy Iranian Efforts to Cloak Unrest,” New York Times, June 17, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/world/middleeast/18iran.html?_r=1.

  125. Amir Taheri, “Regime on the Brink,” New York Post, February 13, 2010, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/regime_on_the_brink_xhGnMOyqyk9vQOl4aWpGfO; “Iran Opposition Leaders Face Execution: Khameini Aide,” Reuters, December 29, 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE5BQ06J20091229.

  126. Nazila Fathi, “Iran Accuses Five of Warring Against God,” The New York Times, January 8, 2010; Edward Yeranian, “Iran Demonstrators Facing Death Sentence,” Voice of America, January 17, 2010, http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Iran-Demonstrators-Facing-Death-Sentence-81930617.html; “Citizens Speak Up for Baha’is in Iran,” DNA, January 8, 2010, http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_citizens-speak-up-for-baha-is-in-iran_1332211; House Resolution 175, “Condemning the Government of Iran for Its State-sponsored Persecution of Its Baha’i Minority and Its Continued Violation of Its International Covenants on Human Rights, 111th Cong., 1st Session (introduced February 13, 2009).

  127. The service in question was likely the July 17 Friday prayer, during which Rafsanjani called for an end to arrests and censorship; see Violent Aftermath: The 2009 Election and Suppression of Dissent in Iran, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2010, 29, http://www.iranhrdc.org/httpdocs/English/pdfs/Reports/Violent%20Aftermath.pdf.

  128. “Twenty Year-Old Student Accused of Moharebeh (Waging War),” Iran Human Rights Voice, February 6, 2010, http://www.ihrv.org/inf/?p=3696; “USCIRF Condemns Thirty-One Years of Religious Abuse in Iran,” U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, February 10, 2010, http://www.uscirf.gov/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=2973.

  129. “One of the Nine Accused of Ashura Protest Sentenced to Death,” Iran Human Rights Voice, March 4, 2010, http://www.ihrv.org/inf/?p=3846#more-3846.

  130. Payman Fatahi, the leader of the hard-to-classify AleYasin society, a self-described “contemplative community,” was held in Evin prison for six months and charged with, inter alia, “dissension from religious dogma,” “promoting pluralism,” and “religious breakdown by attempting to link Islam, Christianity and Judaism.” “Report about Crackdown Against AleYasin Community,” Iran Human Rights Voice, February 2, 2009, http://www.ihrv.org/inf/?p=1763; Elyasin News blog, http://elyasinnews.blogspot.com/.

  Chapter 4

  1. Sayed Al Qimni, “How Brutal of You My Country,” El Qahera, January 2, 2007, http://www.hrinfo.net/mena/aodepf/2005/pr0717.shtml; Stephen Ulph, “Al-Qaeda Extends Threats to Journalists and Intellectuals Outside Iraq,” The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Focus 2, no. 14 (July 22, 2005): http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=530&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=238&no_cache=1.

  2. “Egypt: Security Police Torture Christian Convert Woman,” Compass Direct News, July 18, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=4952&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=50; “Egypt: Police Release Christian to Her Violent Family,” Compass Direct News, July 23, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=4956&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=50. Five months later, speaking by telephone through a translator, a woman claiming to be al-Sayed said police in Alexandria treated her “not good, but not badly” but contradicted eyewitness testimony, raising questions about whether she was under police pressure; see “Egypt: Mystery Shrouds Release of Woman Convert,” Compass Direct News, December 10, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5154&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25.

  3. “Bahai Homes Attacked after Media Commentary,” Menassat News, April 3, 2009, http://www.menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/6305-bahai-homes-attacked-egypt-after-slandering-media-commentary; Egyptian Villagers Torch ‘Deviant’ Bahai Homes,” Agence France Presse (AFP), http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/04/02/69775.html; “Call for Egypt Bahai Attack Probe,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7981252.stm. Two days prior to the Al-Haqiqa episode, Abdel Rahimhad wrote in the state-owned newspaper Al-Gomhuriyah that Baha’is are “a deviant group which seeks to harm Islam to serve the interests of the enemies of the Muslim religion, in particular world Zionism,” “Egyptian Villagers Torch ‘Deviant’ Bahai Homes,” AFP.

  4. “Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt,” http://www.egypt.gov.eg/english/laws/Constitution/default.aspx; David J. Warr, “The State of Freedom of Expression in Egypt,” November 7, 1997, http://www.cjfe.org/protestlets/1997/egyn07.html.

  5. Nadia Abou El-Magd, “When the Professor Can’t Teach,” Al-Ahram Weekly, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/486/eg6.htm; Mona Eltahawy, “Lives Torn Apart in Battle for the Soul of the Arab World,” The Guardian, October 20, 1999, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,260766,00.html.

  6. See Baha’i Faith in Egypt, http://www.bahai-egypt.org.

  7. U.S. State Department, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2001: Egypt,” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8248.htm; International Religious Freedom Report 2007, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90209.htm; “Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom,” Human Rights Watch, November 11, 2007, http://hrw.org/reports/2007/egypt1107.

  8. “Egypt Hearing Highlights ID Card Discrimination for Bahá’ís,” One Country, July–September 2006, http://www.onecountry.org/e182/e18210as_Cairo_ID_Card_Hearing.htm.

  9. HRW/EIPR interview with Diya’ Nur al-Din, Cairo, November 13, 2005, in “Prohibited Identities.”

  10. International Religious Freedom Report 2007. For a defense of the Baha’is by a moderate Muslim thinker, see “Egypt: Interview with Gamal El-Banna,” Baha’i Faith in Egypt blog, October 25, 2006, http://www.bahai-egypt.org/2006/10/egypt-interview-with-gamal-el-banna.html.

  11. International Religious Freedom Report 2007; “Prohibited Identities.”

  12. “Court Decision on Bahai Egyptians Postponed to October 30th,” http://www.copticassembly.com/showart.php?main_id=437; “Egypt: Court Rules Against Convert,” Compass Direct News, January 31, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5209&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25.

  13. See Baha’i Web site: http://www.bahai-egypt.org/.

  14. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights: “Five-year Legal Battle Ends in Favor of Egyptian Bahá’ís,” March 16, 2009, http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/1893.

  15. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform: Human Rights in the Arab Region—Annual Report 2009, 126, http://www.cihrs.org/Images/ArticleFiles/Original/485.pdf.

  16. Photographs of the cards using a dash for “religion” are shown in “First Identification Cards Issued to Egyptian Bahá’ís,” Baha’i World News Service, August 14, 2009, http://news.bahai.org/story/726.

  17 “International Human Rights Report 2009: Egypt,” March 11, 2010, U. S. State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/index.htm.

  18. Liam Stack, “Egyptians Win the Right to Drop Religion from ID Cards,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 20, 2009, http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0420/p06s12-wome.html.

  19. Mohamed Abdel Salam, “Egypt’s Baha’is Still Having ID Problems,” Bikjamasr, March 15, 2010, http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=9906.

  20. “The Egyptian Parliament Is Discussing a Bill to Declare All Bahá’ís Criminals,” The Iran Press Watch, April 29, 2009, http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/2550.

  21. Interviews by Paul Marshall, Cairo, July 2000 and February
5–6, 2001. The massacre at El-Kosheh is described in Massacre at the Millennium (Washington: Freedom House, 2001). For an overview of recent attacks on Copts, see Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, “Two Years of Sectarian Violence: What Happened? Where Do We Begin? An Analytical Study of Jan 2008–Jan 2010,” http://eipr.org/sites/default/files/reports/pdf/Sectarian_Violence_inTwoYears_EN.pdf.

  22. Mustafa El-Menshawy, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,” Al-Ahram Weekly, October 20–26, 2005, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/765/eg6.htm; Maamoun Youssef, “Stabbing of Nun Sparks Tension in Alexandria,” Independent Online, October 20, 2005, http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=85&art_id=qw1129782066324B221; “Three Killed in Egypt Church Riot,” BBC News, October 22, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4366232.stm;2009; Michael Slackman, “Egyptian Police Guard Coptic Church Attacked by Muslims,” New York Times, October 23, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/international/africa/23egypt.html?_r=1.

  23. “Authorities Detain Christian Rights Advocates,” Compass Direct News, August 9, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=4982&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25; “More Christian Activists from Rights Group Jailed,” Compass Direct News, November 12, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5112&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25; “Authorities Free Christian Human Rights Activists,” Compass Direct News, November 7, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5110&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25.

  24. Paul Marshall, interview with Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar, Sheik Tantawi, August 1998. See also Paul Marshall, Egypt’s Endangered Christians (Washington: Freedom House, 1998), and Massacre at the Millennium (Washington: Freedom House, 2000); “Egypt: Copts Appeal Religious Identity Ruling,” Compass Direct News, June 25, 2007, http://www.compassdirect.org/English/country/Egypt/2007/newsarticle4921.html.

  25. Jubilee Campaign USA, “Egyptian Convert to Christianity Held Captive Since November 2009,” July 14, 2010. In July 2007, Ali Gomaa, the grand mufti, made a controversial statement that apostasy only merited punishment in the afterlife. He later clarified that “apostates” could be punished on earth if they were “actively engaged in the subversion of society.”

  26. As quoted in “Egypt—Religious Freedom Profile,” Christian Solidarity Worldwide, January 9, 2009, http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=report&id=118.

  27. BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7888193.stm2/26; Article 98(f) specifies penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to LE 1,000.

  28. Jubilee Campaign USA, “Egyptian Convert Held Captive.”

  29. “Egypt: Crack-Down on Converts to Christianity,” Compass Direct News, November 14, 2003, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=2417&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=75; “Egypt: Convert Ordered Released on Bail,” Compass Direct News, December 15, 2003, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=2479&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=75.

  30. For background, see “Prohibited Identities”; for discriminatory laws concerning marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance, see Law no. 25 of 1920; Law no. 52 of 1929; Law no. 77 of 1943. Though it has not caused any hardship so far because no one has successfully converted from Islam, any convert loses his inheritance. This does not apply to converts to Islam.

  31. “Egypt,” in The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Annual Report 2008, 224, http://www.uscirf.gov/images/AR2008/egyptar2008_full%20color.pdf.

  32. “The International Society for Human Rights nominates Coptic Priest Metaos Wahba as ‘Prisoner of the Month of November 2008,’” December 13, 2008, at Voice of the Copts, http://voiceofthecopts.org/en/innocent_behind_bars/the_international_society_for_human_rights_nominates_coptic_prie.html.

  33. “Egypt: Convert Locked into Mental Hospital,” Compass Direct News, May 13, 2005, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=3816&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=751; “Egypt: Convert Released from Mental Hospital,” Compass Direct News, June 21, 2005, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=3860&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=75.

  34. “Egypt: Sheikh Jailed Eight Months Without Charges,” Compass Direct News, November 23, 2005, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=4089&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=50; “Egypt: Christian Convert from Islam Jailed,” http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=4596&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=50; “Egypt: Authorities Release Jailed Christian Convert,” Compass Direct News, May 24, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=4883&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=50.

  35. “Prohibited Identities”; “Police Detain Convert Who Wedded Christian,” Compass Direct News, November 27, 2007, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5126&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25.

  36. “Egypt Copt Jailed 45 Years after Father’s Conversion,” AFP, November 22, 2007, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWAdeTNMOeMfyPaOwrYpODjNAQJA; “Egypt: Father’s Brief Conversion Traps Daughters in Islam,” Compass Direct News, October 10, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5630&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25; “Bahiya Detained,” Watani International, http://www.arabwestreport.info/AWR/article_details.php?article_id=19984&aweek=19&ayear=2008&t=s&char=0; “Egypt: Christian in Muslim ID Case Wins Right to Appeal,” Compass Direct News, December 2, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5708&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=0. HRW/EIPR reports that, as of November 2007, there were at least eighty-nine people struggling to have their religion officially recognized after their parents converted them against their will; see “Prohibited Identities.”

  37. “Egyptian Convert to Christianity Tortured, Raped in Egypt,” Assyrian International News Agency, December 20, 2008, http://www.aina.org/news/20081219220247.htm; Voice of the Copts: “Muslim Woman Who Converted to Christianity Arrested at Cairo Airport,” http://www.aina.org/news/20081216193035.htm.

  38. “Egypt: Judge Tells of Desire to Kill Christian,” Compass Direct News, January 27, 2009, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5778&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=0.

  39. “Prohibited Identities” says, “Conversion from Islam to Christianity is fraught with legal and social risks.… As a result, the number of persons born Muslim who have converted to Christianity is hard to gauge, but at a minimum it would appear to involve a score or more persons per year, and so cumulatively be in the hundreds if not thousands.” Anecdotal evidence from Egypt suggests the number may be much higher. For further background, see the 2008 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, http://www.uscirf.gov/images/AR2008/annual%20report%202008-entire%20document.pdf. See also “Copts Appeal Religious Identity Ruling,” Compass Direct News, June 25, 2007.

  40. International Religious Freedom Report 2007; “Egypt Adjourns Muslim Converts’ Appeal” AFP, September 2, 2007, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hs761o2Rs9v4unacJxxtyduI-UDA.

  41. “Egypt: Converts Win Case but May Face Discrimination,” Compass Direct News, February 11, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5233&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25.

  42. “Penalize ‘Re-conversion’: Egyptian Fatwa Says,” Al Arabiya, Janua
ry 20, 2008, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/01/20/44471.html; “Egypt: Ex-Muslims Blocked from Declaring Conversion,” Compass Direct News, March 26, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5309&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=25; “Egypt: Citizen Wins Rare Legal Victory to Revert to Christianity,” Compass Direct News, January 8, 2009, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5755&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Egypt&rowcur=0.