CAIRO: The Administrative Court at the State Council ruled Tuesday against a lawsuit filed by a Christian mother requesting a change in her twin sons' identification documents from Muslim to Christian. Kamilia Gabballah, the mother of Andrew and Mario, failed to get approval to issue birth certificates for her two sons, registering them as Christians instead of Muslims in accordance with the religion of their father, who had converted to Islam. Gabballah said in her appeal that her children have been raised as Christians since birth, and that there was a dispute between her and her husband, who decided to convert to Islam and take advantage of the fact that the children were temporarily in his custody. That was when he changed their religion to Islam in official documents. She said that the court had later ruled in her favor, transferring custody to her, which was when she then called for changing their religion back to Christianity. However, the Civil Status Department refused to implement the court order, so she filed a lawsuit against the Interior Minister and the head of the Civil Status Department, but both cases were dismissed. The case of Andrew and Mario, 15, triggered controversy after their mother fought a judicial battle for five years to gain custody of her children when their father converted to Islam. The case was settled in favor of the mother by the highest court in Egypt, the Court of Cassation, in April 2009. Gabballah told Daily News Egypt in a telephone interview from Alexandria, where she lives, that her lawyers will appeal the latest court decision at the Supreme Administrative Court. She added that the boys, now in high school, are having problems with the school administration because they are registered as Muslims. “For the time being, the school has exempt them from attending religion classes, and the Minister of Education issued a decision to use the average of the results of the rest of their exams as a substitute for the results of the religion exam.” She added that the bigger problem is that they will need to issue a national ID card next year to be able to sit for the Thanaweya Amma exam, the National High School certificate. On a related note, head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights and Coptic lawyer, Naguib Gobreal, sent a letter to Pope Shenouda III, calling on him to cancel all official celebrations regarding Christian holidays and to abstain from receiving official government delegates, in solidarity with the twins, Andrew and Mario. Gobreal told Daily News Egypt, “We called on the Pope to cancel all official celebrations regarding Christian holidays and to abstain from receiving official government delegates, in solidarity with the children, who are paying the price for the absence of religious freedom.”
