WATANI International
6 September 2011
Today Tuesday 6 September, the first 50 Christians who had at one point in their life converted, or had to convert, to Islam and later wished to revert to their original Christianity were granted ID documents that cite their original names and their Christian religion.
Last month the Egyptian Interior Ministry issued a legal order to civil register offices throughout Egypt to implement the administrative court order of 3 July in favour of reconverts to Christianity. The court order upheld the right of Christian returnees to have their new status legalised, with their religion being cited as “Christian” in their official ID documents.
So far, the Interior Ministry had refused to correct the ID documents of individuals who reverted to Christianity, and whose numbers ran in the thousands, to cite their new status.