a-4863 (ACC-EGY-4863)
In response to your above request we may provide you with the following information:
General situation of Christians
In its annual human rights report for 2005, published on 8 March 2006, the US Department of State (USDOS) provides following information regarding freedom of religion and the situation of Christians in Egypt:
„The constitution provides for freedom of belief and the practice of religious rites; however, the government placed restrictions on the exercise of these rights. According to the constitution, Islam is the official state religion and Shari'a (Islamic law) the primary source of legislation. Religious practices that conflict with the government's interpretation of Shari'a are prohibited. Members of the non-Muslim religious minority officially recognized by the government generally worshiped without harassment and maintained links with coreligionists in other countries; however, members of religions not recognized by the government, particularly the Baha'i Faith, experienced personal and collective hardship. Most citizens (approximately 90 percent) are Sunni Muslims. […]The percentage of Christians in the population ranged from the government's unofficial estimate of 8 percent (approximately 5.6 million) to Christian estimates of 12 to 15 percent (approximately 8.6 to 10.8 million), the majority of whom belonged to the Coptic Orthodox Church. There were small numbers of other Christian denominations, including Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, a Baha'i community of approximately 2,000 persons and a small Jewish community of less than 200 persons.
Local government officials continued to prevent new churches from being built, often requiring an exhaustive list of documents to be submitted multiple times between administrative and security departments of governorates, in repeated attempts to preclude final authorization, despite presidential and interior ministry approvals for a building permit to be issued. As a result, congregations have experienced lengthy delays--lasting for years in many cases--while waiting for new church building permits to be issued. Authorities have also refused to issue decrees for restoration, renovation, and expansion of churches, or have failed to enforce decrees that have already been approved. Local authorities have also closed down unlicensed buildings used as places of worship.
According to statistics in the government's Official Gazette, 12 presidential decrees were issued from July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2005, for church-related construction, compared with 7 permits reported during the previous period; half of these 12 permits were for evangelical Christian churches, 5 for Coptic churches, and 1 for a Catholic church. The government also reported that 20 new churches were built in 11 governorates during 2004-05 and that 23 churches were renovated during the same period. Government officials have previously asserted that the government approves a much larger number of projects for church construction and expansion, through informal arrangements between church authorities and local security and administrative officials. Overall, the approval process for church construction continued to be hindered by delays often measured in years.
Neither the constitution nor the Civil and Penal Codes prohibits proselytizing, but those accused of proselytizing have been harassed by police or arrested on charges of violating Article 98(F) of the Penal Code, which prohibits citizens from ridiculing or insulting "heavenly religions" or inciting sectarian strife.” (USDOS, 8 March 2006, section 2.c.)
The US Department of State further adds that tradition and some aspects of the law discriminated against religious minorities, including Christians:
“Article 40 of the constitution provides for equal public rights and duties without discrimination based on religion or creed, and in general the government upholds these constitutional protections; however, government discrimination against non-Muslims exists. There are no Christians serving as presidents or deans of public universities and they are rarely nominated by the ruling party to run in elections as NDP) candidates. At year's end, there were 6 Christians (5 appointed; 1 elected) in the 454-seat People's Assembly; 6 Christians (all appointed) in the 264-seat Shura Council; and 2 Christians in the 32-member Cabinet. Christians, who represent approximately 10 percent of the population, currently hold less than 2 percent of the seats in the People's Assembly and Shura Council.
There also are few Christians in the upper ranks of the security services and armed forces. Government discriminatory practices continued to include discrimination against Christians in public sector employment, in staff appointments to public universities, by payment of Muslim imams through public funds (Christian clergy are paid by private church funds), and by refusal to admit Christians to Al-Azhar University (a publicly-funded institution). In general, public university training programs for Arabic language teachers refuse to admit non-Muslims because the curriculum involves the study of the Qur'an. There have been no reports of Christian graduates since 2001.
In October, sectarian tensions erupted in the Muharam Bek area of Alexandria after Muslim protests sparked by the earlier production at the Mar Guirguis Church of a play, which allegedly blasphemed Islam and which had been distributed on DVD. On October 19, a lone Muslim man assaulted a novitiate and a lay worker at the church. On October 21, after Friday prayers, a large crowd gathered outside the church. After some in the crowd threatened the church, security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Three Muslim protesters died in the ensuing violence.
In December 2004, a three-way standoff at Cairo's Abbasiya Cathedral involving Christian protesters, orthodox church officials, and security forces ended with the return of Wafaa' Constantin, the wife of a Coptic Orthodox priest in the Nile Delta province of Beheira, to the protective custody and supervision of the church following her apparent elopement with a Muslim man in late November. Although dozens of protesters and police were injured during the standoff, police did not respond with decisive force and made a notable effort to cooperate with church authorities. Church officials admitted in a December 10 press conference that Wafaa' had not been forced to convert to Islam against her will. During the year, Wafaa' reportedly remained in seclusion in a Coptic Orthodox facility.” (USDOS, 8 March 2006, section 2.c.)
According to Freedom House (FH), the government delays or prevents investigations into alleged mistreatment of Copts (e.g., by the state or its security forces as well as by militant Muslims) because, according to the government, the Copts were part of the Egyptian family, and thus they were not a minority. (FH, 29 June 2005)
BBC News reports in a recent article dated 18 April 2006 of tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians in the town of Alexandria:
“Fifty-two people have been detained in Egypt over their alleged involvement in three days of religious violence in the city of Alexandria. The authorities say the detainees will be held for 15 days for questioning. […]At least two people died in fighting between Muslims and Coptic Christians after a Coptic worshipper was stabbed to death in church. Armed men then attacked three Coptic churches in Alexandria. Egyptian officials blamed the attacks on extremists, but Coptic Christians said the government was not doing enough to protect them.
Coptic Christians make up 10% of the Egyptian population and have complained of harassment and discrimination. Some Copts argue that previous attacks on them have gone unpunished or have drawn light sentences.” (BBC News, 18 April 2006; see also IRIN, 17 April 2006)
Violent clashes between Christians and Muslims were also reported by IRIN in January 2006. IRIN, however, adds that religious tensions among Egypt’s population remained the exception rather than the rule:
“Nevertheless, riots erupted outside a major church in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria as recently as October 2005, leaving three dead and scores injured. According to official accounts, five thousand Muslims had staged a protest after reading reports in the local press about a play – which had supposedly been enacted in the church two years earlier – that was considered offensive to Islam. The demonstration turned violent when protestors began throwing stones at the church and at nearby storefronts. Security forces intervened, using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them.
In December 2004 reports that the wife of a Coptic priest had been forced to convert to Islam also sparked angry Christian protests in Cairo and other Nile delta towns. It later emerged that the woman in question had converted voluntarily.
By far the biggest incident of sectarian friction in recent history, however, was in the village of El-Kusheh, south of Cairo, in 2000. After twenty people were killed in armed clashes between Christian and Muslim residents, the government renamed the village Dar El-Salaam, or “Haven of Peace,” hoping to stamp out all traces of animosity.” (IRIN, 24 January 2006; for information on the riots in October 2005 see also BBC News, 23 October 2005)
Conversion from Islam to Christianity
The US Department of State mentions in its annual human rights report of March 2006 that the conversion from Islam to Christianity was prohibited by the Shari’a:
“There are no legal restrictions on the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam; conversion of Muslims to Christianity, however, is prohibited by Shari'a. There were occasional reports that police harassed those who had converted from Islam.
In April 2004, an administrative court issued a verdict allowing Mona Makram Gibran, who had converted to Islam and later converted back to Christianity, to recover her original (Christian) name and identity. Some legal observers believed the case would constitute a significant precedent as the government has otherwise refused to acknowledge citizens' conversions from Islam to Christianity. During the year, there were at least 49 other cases involving individuals who converted to Islam and then back to Christianity, who are currently attempting to recover their original Christian identities. Approximately 8 of these 49 individuals have received verdicts allowing them to recover their Christian identities. The Ministry of Interior has appealed two of these cases, which were before the Supreme Administrative Court at year's end.
With the exception of the eight above-mentioned cases, resistance to such conversions by local officials constituted a prohibition in practice. In the absence of a legal means to register their change in religious status, some converts have resorted to soliciting illicit identity papers, often by submitting fraudulent supporting documents or bribing the government clerks who process the documents. In such cases, authorities periodically charge converts with violating laws prohibiting the falsification of documents. […]
Coptic males are prevented from marrying Muslim women by both civil and religious laws. A civil marriage abroad is an option should a Christian male and an Egyptian Muslim female desire to marry; however, if the couple returned to Egypt, their marriage would not be legally recognized. Additionally, the woman could be arrested and charged with apostasy, and any children from such a marriage could be taken and assigned to the physical custody of a male Muslim guardian, as determined by the government's interpretation of Shari'a.” (USDOS, 8 March 2006, section 2.c.)
The US Department of State also states that under Shari’a, converts from Islam lose all rights of inheritance:
“Under Shari'a, converts from Islam lose all rights of inheritance; however, because the Government offers no legal means for converts from Islam to Christianity to amend their civil records to reflect their new religious status, inheritance rights may appear not to have been lost.” (USDOS, 8 November 2005, section II)
Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirms that Egyptian law recognizes conversions to Islam, but not from Islam to other religions. Muslims who converted to Christianity would face difficulties in getting new identity papers and some had been arrested for allegedly forging such documents. (HRW, January 2006, chapter “Religious Intolerance and Discrimination against Religious Minorities”; see also CSW, 3 December 2003)
A query response of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) of 13 February 2004 provides an overview of the treatment of Christians from 1999 to February 2004:
“Some recent sources indicated that the Egyptian police arrested dozens of Christians, many of whom were new converts from Islam (Catholic Insight 1 Jan. 2004; Times 1 Nov. 2003; HRWF 30 Oct. 2003). Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) added that the detainees "were tortured" (ibid.), while Catholic Insight reported that they were subjected to "persecution" (1 Jan. 2004). Other converts continue to live in hiding, afraid of being next (Times 1 Nov. 2003).
A report published by the United States Department of State noted that the Egyptian government continued to fail to bring to justice those responsible for killing 21 Christians at Al-Kush and that converts from Islam still faced periodic detention and discrimination (International Religious Freedom Report 2003 18 Dec. 2003). The Al-Kush incident [Al-Kocheh] dates back to January 2000 (Country Reports 2002 31 Mar. 2003, Sec. 1.a; L'Humanité 5 Jan. 2000).
While Egyptian law allows religious conversion (International Religious Freedom Report 2003 18 Dec. 2003; HRWF 30 Oct. 2003), in practice, "Muslims who become Christians face arrest, torture and ongoing threats to their lives" (ibid.). Country Reports 2002 indicated that, in Egypt, "[w]omen and Christians faced discrimination based on tradition and some aspects of the law" (31 Mar. 2003, intro.).
An article on the situation of Christians in certain Muslim countries, published on 16 September 2002, stated that:
Egypt treats its Coptic Christian minority as second-class citizens, and is rather less than vigilant about protecting them from attack by Islamic extremists. The Copts dare not complain, figuring they're better off living under the regime of president-for-life Hosni Mubarak than under the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. It's a humiliating choice, but it guarantees their survival, for now (National Review 16 Sept. 2002).
Citing an incident in El-Minya, a village located 140 miles south of Cairo where Coptic Orthodox Christians gathering to celebrate mass were attacked by a Muslim mob, HRWF reported in a 12 February 2002 article that the local police did not intervene and that, although the attack began at about 9:00 a.m., police officials did not appear until around 12:30 p.m.
In reaction to the massacre of Christians Al-Kocheh [Al-Kush] in January 2000, Monseigneur Wissa, the bishop of that region, accused [translation] "the government of conspiring against the Copts" and denounced [translation] "the passivity of the police" (L'Humanité 5 Jan. 2000).” (IRB, 13 February 2004)
Forced conversions
According to a statement of the Canadian Egyptian Organization for Human Rights on the situation of the Coptic minority in Egypt, Islamist groups practice forced conversions of members of the Coptic community to Islam:
“Forced conversion of members of the Coptic community to Islam, largely publicized as a psychologically demeaning tactic against the minority, is practiced by islamist groups under police manipulation and with their cooperation. Some of these cases start with rape of under age girls. This practice has expanded recently in a way that caused fear and insecurity among the Copts all over Egypt. A few months ago Muslim groups targeted two wives of priests and attempted their conversion to Islam under the protection of local police and media propaganda insulting Christians, an act that infuriated thousands of Copts who took to the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities. Other recent notorious cases of forced conversion of poor Copts were practiced by a high ranking member of the Egyptian ruling party in Upper Egypt.” (UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, June 2005, chapter “Official Restrictions on Practising Christian Worship”)
Please also see a query response of the IRB, dated 9 April 2003, on reports of male and female Christians being forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslims.
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the ACCORD within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.
References:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Working Group on Minorities: Statement by Canadian Egyptian Organization for Human Rights: A country situation: The Coptic Minority of Egypt, June 2005
https://www.ecoi.net/pub/accord388_178egy.doc (Accessed on 2 May 2006)
-
-
