HRW report on Egypt: State Interference with Religious Freedom

Segundo un informe de cen páxinas publicado hoxe por Human Rights Watch, as autoridades de Exipto discriminan ós cidadáns que declaran ter unha relixión distinta das tres grandes monoteístas (xudía, cristiá e islámica) ou que declaran non ter relixión. A estes cidadáns non se lles expide un documento de identidade e, sen el, non poden conseguir un traballo, votar, acceder á universidade, viaxar, realizar transaccións financeiras nin trámites administrativos básicos.

O informe leva por título “Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom”. Copio e pego un extracto da introducción:

[...] All Egyptians upon reaching 16 years of age must, by law, obtain a national identification document that includes a national identification number (raqam qawmi) assigned at birth. A national ID is essential to obtain access to post-secondary schooling, get a job, vote, travel abroad or within Egypt, and conduct the most basic financial and administrative transactions.

The Civil Status Department (CSD) of Egypt’s Ministry of Interior is responsible for administering and providing to Egyptian citizens these national ID cards, as well as identification documents such as birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, and other vital records. These documents record, among other things, a person’s religious identity.

In assigning or recording religious identity, the Egyptian government recognizes only what it refers to as the three “heavenly” or “revealed” religions – Islam, Christianity, and Judaism – and requires Egyptians to pick one of these religions for their identification documents. This limited choice is not based on any Egyptian law, but rather on the Ministry of Interior’s interpretation of Shari`a, or Islamic law. An Egyptian citizen has no option to request a religious identification different from one of these, or to identify him or herself as having no religion. If he or she insists on doing so, authorities refuse to issue a national ID or related document reflecting the requested religious identification.

These policies and practices violate the right of many Egyptians to religious freedom. Because having an ID card is essential in many areas of public life, the policies also effectively deny these citizens a wide range of civil and political as well as economic and social rights. As detailed below, the consequences at times reach deeply into affected individuals’ personal lives.

While the Egyptian government’s approach adversely affects anyone who is not Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, and anyone who would prefer to keep their convictions private, in Egypt today the greatest impact has been on adherents of the Baha’i faith and on persons who convert or wish to convert from Islam to Christianity. Their experience is the focus of this report.

Egypt’s Baha’i community, while small, is the largest and perhaps only unrecognized independent religious community in Egypt. Approximately 90 percent of Egypt’s population identify themselves or are identified as Sunni Muslim, with Coptic Christians comprising most of the rest. While there is some diversity within those two major religions, people belonging to minority Muslim or Christian communities have no problem listing themselves as Muslim or Christian for official identity purposes. The second affected group, converts from Islam to Christianity (or to any other religion), are denied documents not on the basis of any Egyptian law prohibiting such conversion but on what officials understand to be the prohibition in Shari`a against conversion from Islam as a form of apostasy. In contrast, Egyptians who convert from Christianity (or any other religion) to Islam have rarely had any difficulty amending their identification documents to reflect the change.

People without national IDs forfeit, among other things, the ability to carry out even the simplest monetary transactions at banks and other financial institutions. Other basic daily activities — engaging in a property transaction, acquiring a driver’s license, obtaining a pension check — also require a national ID. Employers, both public and private, by law cannot hire someone without an ID, and academic institutions require IDs for admission. Obtaining a marriage license or a passport requires a birth certificate; inheritance, pensions, and death benefits are contingent on death certificates. The Ministry of Health has even refused to provide immunizations to some Baha’i children because the Interior Ministry would not issue them birth certificates accurately listing their Baha’i religion.

Because the consequences of not having an ID card are so far-ranging, some converts from Islam feel compelled to resort to forged documents that reflect their actual religious identity. This constitutes a criminal offense and puts them at risk of heavy fines and years in prison.

Modern technology has made the problem more acute. In the past, when national identity documents were filled out by hand, Baha’is, for example, were sometimes able to get a local civil registry office to leave the religion line blank, or enter “other.” Converts might count on a sympathetic local official to reflect their change of religion, which often also involves a change of name, on identity documents. The government, however, has increasingly removed that option. Since 1995, all persons needing to acquire or replace such documents have had to acquire a computer-generated document from the central Civil Registry office in the Ministry of Interior, whose officials are using this requirement to compel all Baha’is to identify themselves and their children as Muslim or Christian. In the near future, perhaps as soon as early 2008, all persons will have to acquire computerized IDs, even if they now possess a valid paper ID.

Many Egyptians interviewed for this report recounted how Ministry of Interior officials had attempted to pressure and intimidate them into assuming a religious identity not of their choosing. In some cases, officials have confiscated valid identity documents in order to compel individuals to acquire computer-generated ones for themselves or their children. Several Christian women who had converted to Islam and subsequently attempted to “re-convert” back to Christianity testified that a high-ranking officer within the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the CSD alternately threatened and attempted to bribe them in order to pressure them to maintain their Muslim identity. In some instances, this official intolerance of conversion (or re-conversion) to Christianity led to the dissolution of marriages and destruction of families. [...]