Realities governing the erection of buildings which house social services offered by churches, whether these buildings happen to be adjacent to or remote from the mother church, are no different than those governing the building of churches. As such, the security stranglehold imposed on the building, restoration or renovation of churches is also applied to the erection of service buildings. It carries no consequence that such buildings are built to provide educational, healthcare or elderly care services in the first place and have nothing to do with prayers or rituals. It appears that service buildings can never escape the security suspicion that they would some day be transformed into churches and accordingly, and in agreement with the non-negotiable security rule in
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that those in charge of establishing service buildings look for rescue to the long-awaited unified law for building worship places. But Parliament has been shelving the bill for four years now. Such a law, when passed, would undermine security control over church building and give local authorities a time limit to submit their approval or rejection—giving reasons in case of rejection—of applications. The law would thus enhance citizenship rights and realise equality among Egyptians where legislation on building places of worship is concerned.
On that front, many of us share a heritage of bitterness that is getting deeper by the day. I repeatedly wrote in Watani on a host of such cases. A handful of these found their way out of the dark tunnel while the majority remained unresolved. Applicants are met with the intransigence of the security authorities which appear to enjoy the agony they inflict. After promising to approve an application, and allowing applicants to go through long, arduous trips among administration offices for all the necessary approvals, the security officials unhesitatingly reject the application, giving no explanation whatsoever.
On 24 July 2005, among the episodes of the problems on hold, I wrote of the suffering of Shubral-Kheima bishopric in its quest to erect a building meant to serve some 400 Christian families, affiliated to Mit Nama church in Qalyubiya. I cited the harrowing details of the endless procedures that took more than three years to complete, due to security officials’ orders to file appeals and present the papers three consecutive times, but all to no avail. With the unfettered authority they enjoy, the security officials finally rejected the application.
We are now in phase II of the Mit Nama case. As in phase I, phase II took three years and ended likewise. After the church submitted all the required papers, and despite the approval of Qalyubiya governor Adly Hussein, the security authorities vetoed the erection of the service building. Worth noting is that the governor’s approval came within the context of the 2005 presidential decree mandating governors to approve buildings related to already exiting churches. The application also got the approval stamps of, among others, the departments of Qalyubiya water resources and irrigation, healthcare, veterinary medicine, housing, roads, and State property. Yet all these approvals failed to persuade the State security to grant its approval. No reason was cited to justify the rejection.
This case and many others need a miracle to solve the problem; meanwhile the violation of citizenship rights and the humiliation of applicants continue without appalling regularity. Although everybody looks to the unified law for building places of worship as the only way out, Parliament and government appear unperturbed; the long-awaited bill has not been placed on Parliament’s agenda. The current situation is a time-bomb threatening to explode any minute. The desperation of rejected applicants may very well drive them to disregard legal channels and discreetly carry on with the projects they need so much, hoping to make it a fait accompli. Needless to say, the outcome may be one of those countless ‘sectarian incidents’ where a Muslim mob decides to take the law in its own hands, and rushes to inflict vengeance on the Copts who dared build an unlicensed church building. The carnage which follows, the assault of Copts, the burning and looting of their homes and property are all too familiar. And as the security apparatuses stand helpless in the face of the riots, they can only resort to holding the farce of ‘unofficial reconciliation sessions’, while the main problem lives on.
