Thirty five-year-old Ashraf Adel was born a Copt. But according to the state -- and his national identification papers -- Adel, officially at least, is a Muslim. As a result, he was forced to break off an engagement with a Coptic fiancée and to frequently change jobs. “I can't present an ID that names me as a Muslim when I have a cross tattooed on my hand,” he said. Adel is hardly the only example. Twenty nine-year-old Ashraf Abdullah, who "returned" to Christianity in 2004, faces similar problems. He remains unemployed and unmarried since he is unable to change his official papers. “I couldn't hide my Christian identity and pretend to be a Muslim,” he told Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition. Adel is one of almost 2800 cases now in court known collectively as "the Christian returnees," who are awaiting official approval to change their registered religion. Most cases have languished at the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) since March 2008, when Administrative Court head Judge Mohamed el-Hussieni referred those cases, including Adel's, to an administrative court based on Article 47 of the 1994 Civil Status Law. This article states that every citizen has the right to change or correct his or her nationality, profession or religion in official documents. However, el-Husseini asked the SCC to rule on what he sees as an inconsistency between the law, which allows citizens to freely change their religion, and Article 2 of the national charter, which states that Islam is the "religion of the state" and that "principles of Islamic law are the principal source of legislation." Ramses el-Naggar is a lawyer for 2,741 Christians officially registered as Muslims, whose lawsuits have been in the courts for years. He sees el-Husseini's decision as an attempt to makes Article 47 "a decorative measure with no practical use.” The issue raises a number of questions regarding the right to freedom of religion, both in legal and social terms. “Article 2 of the Constitution allows each judge to make decisions based on his own understanding of the Quran," said Adel Ramadan, lawyer for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a local NGO. According to Social anthropologist Amal Fahmi, Egyptian society has been slow to accept the notion of religious conversion. “Egyptians are suppressed," she said. "They don't have much choice in their lives." “The idea of freedom of belief is entirely absent from Egyptian society,” El-Naggar said. Rights activists point out that an official change of religion from Islam to Christianity can open the door to charges of apostasy -- a capital crime according to Islamic law. “Although apostasy isn't a criminal offense, the Court of Cassation has long held apostasy to be synonymous with civil death,” said EIPR Director Hossam Bahgat. According to Bahgat, alleged apostates often lose custody of their children, their rights to inheritance and in some cases are forced to divorce their non-apostate spouses. Describing Islam as a "religion of freedom," Al-Azhar University scholar Abdul Mouti Bayoumi, a hardliner who have previously charged several Egyptian intellectuals with apostasy, said that, "Whoever wants to believe in Islam can believe, and vise versa.” Bayoumi qualified this statement, however, by saying that a Muslim who converts to another religion should keep the information private. If he makes his decision public -- by taking the issue to court or by some other way -- then he will be subject to Islamic rules regarding apostasy. Conservative Muslim scholars who believe that apostasy should constitute a capital crime argue that such a restriction is ensure the stability of the political status quo. “Baha'is, who were recently given the right to leave the 'religion' slot of their national ID cards blank, would then ask for parliamentary representatives,” said Bayoumi. "This would shake the Islamic ruling system." According to legal experts, the Supreme Court has ruled that freedom of belief “does not restrict the application of the Islamic Law to those who embrace Islam,” stated the EIPR in one report. Meanwhile, republicans in the US Congress have proposed a draft resolution condemning what they call "violation of religious freedoms in Egypt and the Arab and Islamic countries." They have also demanded that US President Barack Obama assess Washington's relations with countries of the region on the basis of religious liberties. Singling out Egypt in particular, the draft resolution cites "the Egyptian government's refusal to recognize shifts by Egyptian Muslims to Christianity." In any event, Bayoumi of Al-Azhar takes a cynical view of the issue, since genuine religious sentiment was seldom a motivating factor in the cases he has seen. “When those Christians converted to Islam, they did it for reasons of marriage or money," he said. "Most of those wanting to return to Christianity got what they wanted."
