Kafkaesque ordeal awaits Egypt's converts

Nov 12, 2007, 18:12 GMT

Cairo - When Rami Naim walked into the office of the Civil Affairs Department in 1999 to apply for a new identity card, he did not know that his life would never be the same again.

Until then, Naim was a practising Christian from Egypt's Coptic minority and everybody knew him as such.

But after the authorities assigned to him a new identity, he discovered that he has officially been a member of the Muslim majority for about two decades.

'I resent the new religious identity that has been forced upon me without my knowledge since my father converted to Islam in 1987 after he walked out on my mother,' Naim told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'I was only four then,' said Naim who is now 24.

'No one suspected that my father would have my religious identity changed to Muslim in all official documents,' he added.

But this would have automatically happened anyway as Egyptian state policy dictates that children adhere to their fathers' religion in accordance with the Islamic Sharia law.

Thus, Naim has been automatically converted to Islam by the state without regard to his wish or his mother's and even without his knowledge.

He is one of at least 89 Egyptians in similar circumstances in Cairo alone who have resorted to the Court of Administrative Justice, according to a human right report released on Monday.

The report has been jointly compiled by the New-York-based Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

'These individuals represent a distinct category of Egyptian Christians whom the state has categorized as Muslims without their knowledge or against their will,' the report explains.

Naim's insistence on the religion of his birth and his choice is keeping him from getting the now mandatory computer-generated identity card carrying the equally mandatory national number.

'My old identity card stating my Christian identity is no longer valid as the new type of ID with the national number is needed in all sorts of daily transactions and dealing with the authority,' Naim complained.

His lawyer, Adil Ramadan adds further that the new ID is required for basic entitlements, such university education, maternity leave, medical care and birth certificates.

Although Egypt's constitution guarantees freedom of belief, Sharia law is enshrined in it as the principal source of legislation, the lawyer explained.

The crux of the problem for Egyptians, who converted from Islam to another religion, lies in the discrepancy in the constitution between civil principles, such as freedom of belief, and those of the Sharia law, Ramadan said.

Many of them await a ruling of Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court due on November 17 on the right of Christians who converted to Islam to reconvert to Christianity.

The court decision is expected to have a major impact on the legal treatment of other converts and the general status of freedom of religion in Egypt, the human right report said.