IV. Discrimination on The Basis of Religion or Belief

24. On 12 April 2009, Minister of Justice Mamdouh Marei issued Decree 3499/2009, changing the name of Deir Abu Hanas village (literally, the Monastery of Abu Hanas), located in the Mallawi governorate of Minya, to Wadi al-Na’na’ (Mint Valley). Villagers objected to the minister’s decision by issuing a statement, a copy of which was obtained by EIPR researchers, demanding that the decree, which came “out of the blue” according to them, be rescinded and that the village retain its old name. A resident of the village told EIPR researchers that he was upset by the name change because “the village has, historically and religiously, a Christian character related to its name, and changing the name without cause makes residents feel that the provincial authorities want to erase the village’s history. The village was named after Saint Yohannas the Short, who established the first church in the area in 413 CE after escaping attacks by Berbers.”

On 11 and 14 June, villagers demonstrated after local authorities failed to respond to their request. Following the protest, Ahmed Dia al-Din, the governor of Minya, issued Decree 924/2009 on 15 June, which kept the village’s name as it had been. Nevertheless, despite the governor’s decree, some residents of the village received personal identity cards on 20 and 21 June 2009 listing their address as Wadi Na’na’ instead of Deir Abu Hanas. One resident told EIPR researchers that employees at the local civil registry office told him, after he objected to the new name on his personal identity card, that they were administratively subordinate to the Interior Ministry and thus needed an order from the Minister of Interior, to the exclusion of any other official party, even the governor of Minya.

The villagers staged another demonstration on 21 June, and on the same day the Minister of Justice issued Decree 5755/2009, upholding the village’s retention of its old name. As of the release of this report, the civil registry office has stopped using Wadi Na’na’ and returned to Deir Abu Hanas on official documents for residents of the village.

This is not the first time that the name of the village has been changed to Wadi Na’na’. A presidential decree was issued in 1964 (no. 619/1964) changing the village’s name to Wadi Na’na’, followed by a ministerial decree in 1979 (no. 30/1979) that reinstated the old name.

25. Several newspapers, among them the independent daily al-Dustour of 11 May 2009, reported that Minister of Awqaf Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq had met with a delegation of students from the American University in Cairo to explain the role of various religious institutions in Egypt. When answering questions from the audience, the minister said, “Baha’ism is a phenomenon that turned into a religion, and it is an attempt to create strife in society. We must confront it to preserve society’s security and stability.”

26. The website of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, subordinate to the Ministry of Awqaf, published a book in late May 2009 as part of its Islamic studies series titled Baha’ism from an Islamic Perspective. The book is a collection of three research papers that attack the Baha’i faith: “A Look at the Baha’i Religion,” by Mohamed Farid Wagdi; “Baha’ism,” by Sheikh Mohamed al-Khidr Hussein; and “Baha’ism between Sharia and the Law,” by Judge Ali Ali Mansour.