WATANI International
22 March 2009
Last week the Supreme Administrative Court finally put an end to the string of grievances suffered by Egypt’s Baha’i community when it ruled in favour of their legal documents carrying a blank field for religion.
The court removed any grounds for preventing Baha’is from receiving proper official identity documents when it dismissed an appeal by two Muslim lawyers that sought to block a lower court ruling in their favour last year. That ruling had stipulated that Baha’is could leave blank the religious classification field on official documents, including all-important identity cards and birth certificates.
Private convictions
Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), said the ruling actually goes far beyond the issue of rights for Egyptian Baha’is. “This is the first time the Supreme Administrative Court has found that any Egyptian has the right to keep his or her religious convictions private, even if the state does not recognise their belief system,” he said. The EIPR handled legal representation for Baha’is in court. “The final ruling is a major victory for all Egyptians fighting for a State where all citizens enjoy equal rights regardless of their religion or belief,” he said. Since the Supreme Administrative Court is the highest court on such matters, there can be no further appeal to this case and, therefore, there should be no delay in the government’s implementation of the new policy.
Blocked out
Some seven years ago the computerised identity card system was introduced. It acknowledged only three religious classifications: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Baha’is were thus unable to get official documents unless they chose to identify their religious affiliation as one of the three. If they chose not to, they found themselves blocked out of public education, financial services, and even health care in government hospitals.
In April 2006 a lower administrative court upheld the right of Baha’is to be explicitly identified on official documents but in December that year the Supreme Administrative Court reversed that decision. In a compromise, Baha’is proposed using a dash or the word “other” on documents, instead of being forced to list themselves as Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, and, on 29 January 2008, a lower court again ruled in their favor. But then two Muslim lawyers, who regularly oppose anything that might be seen as even tacit departure from ultra-conservative sharia (Islamic legal code), filed an appeal. In response, government officials took a “go slow” attitude on implementing the lower court ruling, saying they wanted to wait until all legal issues were cleared up. The last ruling came in the case of 14-year-old twins Imad and Nancy Raouf Hindi who have been deprived of birth certificates and were unable to legally attend school in Egypt. In recent weeks, several other cases involving Baha’is have been likewise resolved in their favour.