I. Court Rulings and Trials

1. On 30 June 2009, the first circuit of the Court of Administrative Justice, headed by Judge Mohamed Ahmad Atiya, rejected a suit filed by Girgis Malak Wasef contesting the state changing his religion to Islam after his Christian father converted to that religion. The plaintiff said in his lawsuit (no. 4475/58) that he was not yet seven years old when his father converted to Islam and that the Ministry of Interior’s Civil Status Authority changed his religion to Islam and his name to Mohamed Mustafa Mohamed without his consent. The plaintiff asked the court to compel the Ministry of Interior to issue official documents for him containing his personal information as registered at his birth, including his original name and religion. He argued that the changes were made without his consent and that, having reached the age of legal maturity, he has the right to choose his religion.

In its ruling, a copy of which was obtained by the EIPR, the court explained its rejection of the suit by noting that “the principles and judgments of Islam, as the religion embraced by a majority of Egyptians…determines the right of the non-Muslim to embrace the revealed religion of his choice, and these same judgments prohibit a person who has entered Islam and practiced its rites from leaving the religion, given that it is the final seal of the revealed religions. This has become an aspect of public order that must be respected.” The court added, “Although Islamic jurisprudence recognizes different opinions on the application of the hadd punishment for apostasy, no [jurist] denies the magnitude of the apostate’s crime and his assault on Islam after he has willingly embraced the religion.”

The court stated that public order in Egypt “is pained by harm to the official national religion, which has taken up a permanent place in the hearts of the majority of the Egyptian people, represented by the evil of rebelling against its judgments and the criminality of apostasy.” The court also said that “the Muslim who has freely embraced Islam or lived and internalized Islam…cannot forsake Islam, toying with this true religion and distancing himself from right guidance and indulging in his own passions.” The ruling stated that conversion is only permissible if it follows a certain order, which the ruling described as an order “sanctioned by the Almighty God.” Explaining this, the court said, “He who believes in Judaism is called on to embrace Christianity, which was revealed later, and he who believes in Christianity is called on to embrace Islam, the seal of all religions. In all these cases, the opposite is incorrect, as evidenced by God’s ordering of the revelation of His religions, and in accordance with public order and morals in Egypt.”

Responding to questions about Egypt’s ratification of international human rights conventions that uphold the freedom of belief and an individual’s right to embrace the religion or faith or his choice, the court said, “Egypt, as an Islamic state in which the majority of people believe in Islam, exercised its legislative sovereignty to approve these conventions while also being mindful of the provisions of Islamic law and careful that there is no contradiction between the content of these conventions and these provisions, which have been consolidated as public order that must be respected.”

The court also cited a fatwa issued by the Dar al-Ifta’ on 14 May 2006, in response to petition 704/2006, regarding the permissibility of declaring one’s apostasy and the state authorities’ acknowledgement of it. The fatwa concluded, “He who enters Islam voluntarily, without coercion, and on the basis of evidence leading him to change his religion to Islam cannot deviate from the public order of his community and ask that his name and religion be changed after he has already changed them once before or proclaim his apostasy, for the confusion he evinces will tempt people away from the true religion, and this is a matter involving the rights of others.”

The court concluded that the plaintiff is a Muslim because his father converted to Islam when the plaintiff was six years old. In turn, he cannot renounce Islam. The court noted, “It is a matter of consensus in Islamic jurisprudence that the son follows either of his parents in Islam, and the preponderant opinion in Hanafi jurisprudence is that a person who is Muslim through his parents need not publicly renew his faith after reaching the age of maturity for it is already an assumed fact, since it is in keeping with one’s natural disposition or closest to it.” On these grounds, the court ruled that the administrative body is not compelled to consider the plaintiff’s request.

2. On 8 July 2009, the Emergency Supreme State Security Court rejected an appeal from the Minister of Interior contesting the court’s previous decision to release blogger Hani Nazir, the proprietor of the blog Kareez al-Hubb. The Ministry of Interior arrested Nazir on 3 October 2008 following rumors in the village of al-Aila, located in the district of Abu Tisht in the Qena governorate, that he had published material offensive to Islam on his blog (see paragraph 24 of the First Quarterly Report, 2009). Available information indicates that Nazir was arrested after some village youths found a link on his blog that led to a story titled “Azazel’s Billy Goat in Mecca,” written by a person calling himself Father Yuta. The story is allegedly a response to Youssef Ziedan’s novel Azazel, which the Coptic Church considered offensive.

Although the court’s release order was final according to the provisions of the Emergency Law, the Ministry of Interior did not comply and issued a new administrative arrest order for Nazir without releasing him. The attorneys for the blogger, who is detained in the Burg al-Arab Prison in Alexandria, filed another petition against the new arrest order, registered as no. 7159/2009, but the court rejected that petition on 30 September 2009. According to the provisions of the Emergency Law, another petition contesting the detention order cannot be filed for another 30 days.

3. The Court of Administrative Justice on 12 July 2009 began considering suit no. 41935/63, filed by Mohamed Higazi against the President and others. The plaintiff is asking for recognition of his conversion from Islam to Christianity. According to the text of the complaint, a copy of which was obtained by the EIPR, the plaintiff is asking that the Civil Status Authority be compelled to change his name to Bishoi Armiya Boulos and change his religious affiliation from Islam to Christianity in all his official identity documents. If the suit is rejected, the plaintiff asked that his name be changed to Bishoi and that a dash (—) be placed in the slot for religious affiliation on identity documents. The case is still pending before the court.

On 29 January 2008, the Court of Administrative Justice rejected a similar petition filed by the same plaintiff (no. 35647/61), in which the plaintiff asked the Civil Status Authority to change his religion from Islam to Christianity on all official documents (see paragraph 5 of the First Quarterly Report, 2008). Mohamed Higazi appealed this ruling before the Supreme Administrative Court (suit no. 13040/54), but a hearing date had not yet been set at the time this report was written. At the same time, Higazi decided to file a new lawsuit containing additional demands in the wake of the court ruling that allowed Baha’is to place a dash (—) in the slot for religious affiliation on official documents.

4. The period under review saw two lawsuits filed with the Court of Administrative Justice against the Minister of Culture, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Culture and the Sheikh of al-Azhar. Both suits asked that the State Merit Prize in social sciences for 2009, given to writer Sayyid al-Qimni and philosophy professor Hassan Hanafi, be revoked. According to the lawsuits, copies of which were seen by the EIPR, the plaintiffs argue that al-Qimni and Hanafi have been rendered ineligible for the award due to the offenses to religion and faith found in their writings. The first lawsuit was filed by Youssef al-Badri contesting al-Qimni’s prize on 13 July 2009 (no. 48575/63), and a hearing has been set for 3 November 2009; the second lawsuit was filed by several lawyers contesting both al-Qimni and Hanafi’s prize on 11 August 2009 (no. 52478/63), and a hearing has been set for 10 November.

On 25 June 2009, the Supreme Council for Culture awarded the State Merit Prize to Sayyid al-Qimni and Hassan Hanafi, sparking widespread debate between supporters and opponents of the decision. The awardees are chosen by a vote of the members of the Supreme Council.

In a related context, on 1 April 2008, the Court of Administrative Justice headed by Mohamed al-Husseini issued a temporary injunction against the decision to grant poet Helmy Salim the State Award for Achievement in the Arts. Salim’s prize was revoked pending a final decision on the merits of lawsuit no. 31339/61, also filed by Youssef al-Badri. According to the court, Salim had “offended the divinity” in one of his poems (see paragraph 1 of the Second Quarterly Report, 2008).

5. On 27 July 2009, the ninth circuit of the Sayyida Zeinab Family Court, headed by Judge Walid Mohamed Rifaat, ruled on petition no. 164/2007, removing Aser Usama Sabri from the care of his Baha’i parents and awarding custody of the child to the mother’s Muslim aunt. The child’s maternal grandfather had filed a suit demanding custody after he discovered that the child’s parents had embraced the Baha’i religion; his sister joined the petition and also demanded custody for the same reason.

In its ruling, a copy of which was obtained by the EIPR, the court explained that “it is a settled matter of law that custody of a Muslim child cannot go to an unbelieving parent, for custody is a type of guardianship and God did not empower the unbeliever to exercise guardianship over the believer.” The court stated, “Although Hanafi jurists allow a non-believing mother to assume custody, they stipulate that the mother cannot be an apostate, for they believe that the apostate deserves imprisonment until she repents and returns to Islam or dies in prison.” The court said that Muslim clerics have agreed that “the Baha’i or Babiya faith is not an Islamic creed and that he who embraces this creed is not a Muslim and has committed apostasy.”

The court stated that it had accepted the testimony of two witnesses called by the plaintiff, who said that the child’s mother had “converted to Baha’ism and forsaken Islam.” The court concluded on the basis of the witnesses’ testimony that the mother “had converted to the so-called Baha’i religion and, as such, she has forsaken Islam and so no longer meets a condition required for custody of the child Aser, which in this case is the condition of not committing apostasy against Islam. The child’s continued presence with the first defendant—the mother—constitutes the greatest harm.” Neither the child nor his parents attended the hearing, having traveled abroad after the lawsuit was filed.

6. On 17 August 2009, the tenth criminal circuit of the Cairo Appeals Court began hearing appeal no. 321/2007, filed by blogger Abd al-Karim Nabil Suleiman, known as Karim Amer, contesting his conviction and four-year prison sentence on charges of showing contempt for religion and offending the President. The case was still pending as of the writing of this report.

The case began on 6 November 2006, when Amer was arrested and questioned about writings on his blog. The Public Prosecutor’s office claimed that the material showed contempt for Islam, incited civil strife, “contained prejudicial information and rumors designed to upset public security” and insulted the President. The prosecutor’s office referred the blogger to the Muharram Bek Misdemeanor Court, which sentenced Amer to four years in prison in February 2007; the verdict was upheld by the Misdemeanor Appeals Court in March 2007. Although attorneys with the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information appealed the verdict in May 2007, the court only began hearing the case in August 2009. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a decision on 23 March 2009 deeming the Egyptian authorities’ detention of Karim Amer arbitrary and in violation of international law, and demanding his release.