The Administrative Court last Tuesday issued a ruling stipulating that the religious box in the ID documents of Baha’is may be either left vacant or filled with a plain dash. Raouf Hindi had gone to court demanding the right to have his twin children Emad and Nancy cited as Baha’is or as holders of ‘other’ religion—meaning other than the three heavenly religions recognised by the Egyptian Constitution—in their official identity documents. The other plaintiff in the same case was Hussein Hosni, a university student in Port Saïd who was expelled from his college because, having no ID card, he could not prove his identity. The Baha’i community was elated at the ruling since Baha’is had hitherto been obliged to have themselves registered as Muslims, Christians or Jews, in order to obtain official identity documents.
Also on Tuesday the same court ruled rejecting the demand of Mohamed Higazi, a Muslim-born Christian convert, to be legally recognised as a Christian, for the sake of maintaining social peace. Higazi is married to a Christian convert and they have a baby girl whom they wish to raise as a Christian, but who cannot be raised thus unless the parents are officially recognised as Christians themselves.