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ISTANBUL-Egypt has denounced a U.S. report on the African nation’s worsening condition of religious freedom.The State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report, released on September 14, says that within the past year the Egyptian government’s respect for religious freedom had “declined.”Harsh treatment of converts from Islam to Christianity, ongoing difficulties building churches and official discrimination against the country’s Baha’i minority topped the report’s list of violations.A spokesman for Egypt’s foreign ministry said he regretted “fallacies” in the report, according to semi-official daily al-Ahram on Monday (September 17). He said that the United States had “no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Egypt,” al-Ahram reported.The official did not elaborate on any of the report’s purported mistakes.The U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom noted worsening conditions for Egyptian converts during a press conference on the report’s release last week.“The government of Egypt has denied conversion to Christianity even by people who were born into a Christian family, later converted to Islam and then want to go back,” John Hanford told journalists in Washington, D.C.In April, a Cairo court rejected the right of converts to Islam to return to Christianity, the report says. The decision overturned three years of rulings that had allowed at least 32 “re-conversions” to Christianity.Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court is due to rule on the appeal of 12 of these former Christians on November 17.At least 200 cases of Christian converts to Islam who now wish to return to their original faith are pending in Egyptian courts, the report states.Much is at stake for would-be converts. The report notes that marriage, divorce, alimony, child custody and burial are based on one’s religion under Egyptian law. Under sharia [Islamic law] as practiced in the country, non-Muslim males must convert to Islam to marry Muslim women, but non-Muslim women need not convert to marry Muslim men,” the report states.A Muslim woman who marries a non-Muslim abroad could be arrested and charged with apostasy on her return to Egypt, according to the 13-page document.In cases where a Christian woman converts to Islam, her husband is given the chance to follow suit. If he refuses, the couple is automatically divorced and the children awarded to the Muslim mother.“The minor children of converts to Islam, and in some cases adult children, may automatically become classified as Muslims in the eyes of the government irrespective of the religion of the other spouse,” the U.S. report notes. It says that the practice is based upon the administration’s interpretation of Islamic law, which dictates “no jurisdiction of a non-Muslim over a Muslim.”Christian twins Mario and Andrew Medhat Ramsis, 13, have brought a case against the government for changing the religious designation on their birth certificates to “Muslim” after their father converted to Islam. Their case is pending before a Cairo court.Threatened Converts
Conversion away from Islam remains a sensitive issue in majority-Muslim Egypt. Enshrined in the constitution as the basis for the nation’s legislation, Islamic law forbids a Muslim to leave the faith.Ambassador Hanford pointed to problems faced by Muslim-born converts to Christianity at last week’s press conference, mentioning the case of convert Bahaa al-Accad.“We are pleased that one particular case where – where a gentleman was held for 25 months, Bahaa al-Accad, that he was released not long ago, but now his life is under threat,” Hanford said.The former sheikh, 58, had been held without charge, though official interrogations indicated he was suspected of “insulting Islam.”Still living under threat from radical Islamists, al-Accad’s case typifies difficulties faced by converts from Islam to Christianity discussed in the U.S. report.
“The security services reportedly maintain regular and sometimes hostile surveillance of Muslim-born citizens who are suspected of having converted to Christianity,” the report states.
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