OPINION:
Motaz Zahran, Egyptian ambassador to the United States, recently argued in these pages that Egypt is a model of religious coexistence (“Egypt’s religious freedom tradition an asset to America, the world,” Web, May 28).
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, he wrote, has said that “the right to believe in any faith … is absolute and should be protected and respected.”
Speaking as an Egyptian now living in Canada and as a Baha’i, a member of a minority faith in Egypt, I have to say that I was stunned by these words.
I am delighted for my Christian and Jewish friends in Egypt if they have seen some progress, but it is a different story for the Baha’is.
The struggles facing Egyptian Baha’is are well known. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, United Nations officials such as High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk and almost a dozen experts have all voiced concerns.
In Egypt, Baha’i marriages have been invalidated, viable ID cards are impossible to obtain, access to burial plots is blocked, and Baha’is live under oppressive surveillance.
The legal benefits of marriage — inheritance, ownership, pension rights, access to healthcare and much more — are unavailable to hundreds of legitimate Baha’i families. Denying these rights to Baha’is is codified in a law that says, “Baha’i marriages shall not be notarized among themselves or between them and adherents of other religions.”
Baha’i couples without valid marriage certificates cannot even secure birth certificates for their newborns, nor can mothers pass on their Egyptian citizenship to their children.
In 2017, encouraged by Mr. el-Sissi’s support for religious freedom (and on official advice), many Egyptian Baha’i couples challenged this law. From 2017 to 2020, 43 couples filed lawsuits seeking marriage recognition, and family courts approved about 20.
Three years later, the approvals were halted. By 2021, the government was appealing the rulings. Earlier this year, the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest court for such matters, invalidated all Baha’i marriages.
Such disappointing and coordinated actions could not have occurred without government backing, and they contradict warm words about equality for all.
In Egypt, national ID cards are mandatory and require citizens to list their religions. Christian, Jewish or Muslim are the only choices — meaning Baha’is are unable to get ID cards. In 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that Baha’is could use a dash in place of religion, a ruling intended to shield them from discrimination.
Egyptian Baha’is celebrated the result, but it was false hope. Baha’is who could not demonstrate that their parents were also Baha’is could not get the cards; others found that officials were reluctant to issue them. In the end, just one office in Cairo was authorized to do so.
Some people were so unfamiliar with the dash that they rejected it. Others knew that it signified “Baha’i” and discriminated against people with the dash on their cards. The Baha’is are experiencing the very problem the dash was meant to avert.
Baha’is are even struggling to bury their dead. For more than 60 years, since Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser confiscated Baha’i cemeteries and other properties in 1960, the community has asked for new burial lands.
In 2021, a provincial authority sought guidance from the renowned center of Islamic learning, Al-Azhar, which declared it was “not permissible” to allocate burial lands to “those with the dash” because it could “lead to discrimination, further segregation and division, and rupture the fabric of the community.”
The ruling followed decades of anti-Baha’i sentiment from Al-Azhar’s influential clerics. We may soon be forced to bury our loved ones upright in our one cemetery in Cairo, inflicting indignity even in death.
Egypt’s security services also monitor many Baha’is and Baha’i gatherings, sometimes warning people from outside the community to stay away.
Treating us as a security threat reveals a deep misunderstanding of a peaceful, service-minded community. We have always lived in harmony with our fellow Egyptians, and we wish only to serve our society.
I love Egypt and always will. It is encouraging to see Mr. el-Sissi and his ambassador champion religious freedom, but this freedom must be granted to all Egyptian citizens.
If Egyptian officials want to be true to their word, Baha’is must be able to get married, get ID cards without listing their faiths and bury their loved ones. Addressing the persecution of the Baha’is is the perfect place to start.
• Samandary Hindawi is an Egyptian now living in Canada who works as a management consultant.
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