WATANI International
2 May 2010
The 16-year-old twins Andrew and Mario were born Christian. Their father, Medhat Ramsis, converted to Islam in 2000, back to Christianity in 2002, then again to Islam in 2005. In the meantime he divorced their mother Kamilia Lutfy who, after a bitter fight in the courts, gained custody over the boys. But, according to Egyptian law, the boys should follow their parent’s Muslim religion. Since the twins wished to remain Christian, their mother took their case to court.
The boys’ predicament caught public interest when, two years ago, Andrew and Mario insisted they were Christian no matter what the cost. In an Islamic Religion test they were obliged to take by their school—passing a test in the religion a student belongs to is mandatory in Egyptian schools—the two boys left their answer sheets blank except for the words “I am Christian”. This meant they had failed their test and cannot move on to the higher class, even though they had brilliantly passed all their other examinations. The then Education Minister Yusri al Gamal, however, issued a decision that they should be promoted to the higher class until the court resolves the question of which religion they belonged to.
Freedom of belief
Easter this year came with an unpleasant surprise for Andrew and Mario. On 30 March, the Cairo Administrative Court denied the twins the right to be Christian. Recently, the legal reasoning behind the ruling was issued, citing the absence of official documentation that the twins were Christian. Even though the boys’ lawyer presented some 15 documents proving the boys were practising Christians, the court recognised none of them, saying that “churches by law are not competent to issue such certificates”.
This takes the boys and their mother back to square one, since the Interior Ministry insists it needs a court order to issue legal documents that cite the boys as Christian.
Ms Lutfy says she and the boys will appeal the ruling. “Andrew and Mario were not asked which religion they prefer to belong to,” she told Watani. “This is irregular. Is the court trying to place us on the same footing as the Muslim converts who wish to revert to their original Christian religion but are denied the right to do so? The boys never converted to Islam at any point, so why are they being treated as such? If they are forced to be Muslim now on the pretext that their father is Muslim and they are minors so should follow the Muslim religion, they realise they would never be allowed to revert to Christianity when they are of age.”
Awad Shafiq, professor of International Law in the University of Geneva, told Watani that, as long as Egyptian law stipulates Islam is the ‘better’ religion that children of mixed marriages must follow, and as long as many judges in Egypt insist on applying the second article of the Constitution literally—this article declares Islam the religion of the State and Islamic sharia the main source of legislation—there was not much hope the twins can ever be granted the right to remain Christian. Mr Shafiq sees that the case ought to be taken to the international community.
Ms Lutfy has vowed to fight her sons’ case out in court to the very last. But what hurt her and the twins most was a glimpse into Egyptian public opinion. The day the ruling was issued it was in all the news. On the Internet, a sizeable portion of readers’ comments ran to the effect: “If they [the twins] insist on remaining Christian, let them leave the country.” So much for freedom of belief for Egyptians in Egypt.