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Evangelization & Conversion

The Egyptian Constitution promises the right of free speech. But bearing witness to the Christian faith amongst those who are not legally registered as Christians is regarded as an intolerable offence by both the state and the Muslim population at large. In this regard Islamic tradition takes precedence over statute law. Christians may share their faith with others who are legally registered as Christians. But to do so amongst those registered as Muslims is exceedingly dangerous. Christians who do share their faith with Muslims run the risk of suffering violence from intolerant Muslims at the grassroots level and/or from the Islamic state. When the police intervene in such cases, they usually do so on the grounds that national unity or social order is being threatened, or that Islam is being insulted. These are punishable offences according to statute law. Unheeded police warnings are normally followed by interrogations and may result in loss of employment and imprisonment. Christian clergy who are approached by Muslims enquiring about the Christian faith must take care not to say or do anything that may be construed as encouragement to accept Christianity. When the Muslim community fears that Christianity is having an influence on Muslims, the clergyman can expect to be approached by police or militant Muslim provocateurs posing as enquirers about Christianity. While the Egyptian government heavily subsidizes the training of Muslim missionaries for work in Egypt and abroad, Christian mission organizations may only operate in Egypt on the condition that they do not engage in evangelization amongst Muslims. Foreign missionaries are routinely expelled from the country when the authorities become suspicious that they are violating this condition.

Egypt has signed the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights which acknowledges "freedom to change ... religion or belief". It is also a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which calls for the right of the individual "to adopt a religion or belief of his choice" and to enjoy "freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching." But Muslims who are discovered to have practiced the right to choose a faith other than Islam are severely punished. The punishments that such known converts can expect to receive from the Muslim family range from being disowned to murder. The state does not make legal provision for changing one's religious identity. Thus former Muslims remain subject to discriminatory Islamic family and inheritance law. The police intimidate converts and have in some cases imprisoned them on trumped up charges, such as threatening national unity and security or insulting Islam.

Egyptian statute law, unlike Islamic law, does not explicitly specify death as a punishment for conversion from Islam to other faiths. But several personal status laws from the first half of the 20th century negatively affect the legal status of converts from Islam. A Muslim wife is required to divorce an apostate husband. Converts from Islam lose all inheritance rights. They also lose custody of their children. (Law no. 25 of 1920, Law no. 52 of 1929 and Law no. 77 of 1943) No similar legal consequences befall converts from Christianity to Islam. On the contrary, the state encourages conversion from Christianity to Islam.

Both the Egyptian state and Muslim society at large regard public evangelism and conversion from Islam to Christianity as subversive. Orthodox Muslim jurists argue that Islamic law prescribes the death penalty for such conversion because it is tantamount to treason. Public evangelism, they maintain, is forbidden because it amounts to incitement to treason. The Egyptian government follows similar reasoning. In January 1991 the Egyptian Ambassador in London, Dr. Mohamed I. Shaker, defended the imprisonment of converts to Christianity who had allegedly explained in public their preference for Christianity over Islam. Ambassador Shaker declared that "such acts can lead to threats to social peace and national unity". The Egyptian authorities therefore regard the country's Emergency Security Law, which was designed to combat militant Muslim groups seeking the violent overthrow of the state, as an appropriate instrument for punishing Christian converts, especially those who share their Christian faith with Muslims.

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Reported Cases:

Four Christian converts from Islam were imprisoned in 1986. Dr. Samir Abdel Bari, his wife Ebitisam and Mrs. Abdel Bari's two sisters Eman Mustafa Tawfik and Nagwa Mustafa Muhammad Tawfik were jailed between January and May 1986 on the basis of the 1981 State of Emergency Law. All were Protestants. Dr. Abdel Bari was arrested while visiting his sisters-in-law in prison. Mrs. Abdel Bari was arrested at home on the same night. The Abdel Bari's distressed young children had to be looked after by Christian friends. The four were released from prison in July and August 1987.

Four foreign Arab converts from Islam to Christianity - two from Morocco and two from Tunisia - were arrested under the State of Emergency Law in Alexandria on April 24, 1986. After six months in prison without formal charge, the four were deported to France.

The Christian convert from Islam Dr. Abdul Rahman was arrested in October 1986. He was imprisoned in Turah Prison without trial until his release in August 1988. He now lives in exile.

The Methodist Church at 20 Nagema Kashqush Street in the Shubra District of Cairo was closed by the police on January 16, 1987. The pastor of the 300 member church, Rev. Ramzy Batrous, has never received any official explanation for the closure. But it is generally believed amongst church members that it was due to the fact that this evangelical church was the scene of the testimony of a Christian conversion experience by a former Muslim.

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The Coptic Orthodox Christian Yohanna Beshoy Abdulmessih from Kafr al-Sheikh in Lower Egypt abandoned Islam in 1965. He was arrested in February 1987 after the police discovered the testimony of his conversion on a cassette tape and was held without charge in Mazara'at Prison till his release nine months later. In October 1989 he was rearrested and imprisoned until September 1990 when he posted bond of 1,000 Egyptian pounds. Since then Mr. Abdulmessih has been periodically called in by the police for questioning and must report to the State Security Bureauthe names of all those he meets. Recently his sight was impaired severely following physical abuse while in police custody.

Two Coptic Orthodox priests, Fr. Zakaria Boutros and Fr. Bishoy Yassa, were imprisoned and expelled from Egypt in June 1991 because they had baptized converts from Islam to Christianity in Cairo. Prior to their expulsion the priests were held in a maximum security prison. The Egyptian government pressed the Orthodox hierarchy to reassign the two priests to churches outside Egypt. Frs. Boutros and Yassa were taken to the airport in handcuffs before being sent to Australia.

Mrs. Nahid Mohammed Mitwalli, the Vice-Principal of the Girls High School in Helmeit Al-Zatoun near Cairo, converted from Islam to Christianity. She fled Egypt in July 1989. Four Christian staff members at the school, who were believed to have influenced Mrs. Mitwalli's decision to become a Christian, were detained and maltreated by officers of the State Security Bureau. Mauris Ramzy, a science teacher, was whipped, placed naked in front of air ventilators and incarcerated in the Abou Zaabal Prison. He developed severe kidney problems as a result of this treatment. An English teacher, Lauris Aziz, was detained for two days in a police station where she were tortured. She was released after paying 500 Egyptian pounds as bail. Another teacher, Mrs. B.A.M. - whose name is withheld for security reasons - became a Christian in January 1989. She was arrested in October 1989, but was released from Kanater Prison after she felt obliged to renounce the Christian faith so that she could be reunited with her two young children. The school secretary, Salwa Ramzy, was interrogated and tortured by officers of the State Security Bureau.

Other Christians who had contact with Mrs. Mitwalli have been jailed by the authorities for having allegedly denigrated a "heavenly religion". Nabil Adib Bissada, an engineer and businessman, was arrested in October 1989 and was detained until April 1990 in Abou Zabal Prison. Mr. Bissada's jailers hung him by his wrists and tortured him with electric shocks and beatings. He was accused of helping Mrs. Mitwalli hide from Muslim extremists seeking to enforce Shariah law by executing her for apostasy. A.W.M., an associate of Mrs. Mitwalli, was detained for five months in Abou Zabal Prison for allegedly having been in possession of cassette recordings of the testimonies of Muslim converts to Christianity. He was released after posting bond of 1,000 Egyptian pounds. Fr. Sedaros Al-Anba Bishoy, together with his 77 year-old father, was detained and physically abused when the State Security Bureau suspected that the priest had helped Mrs. Mitwalli. N.R., an engineer, was jailed for four months in Abou Zabal Prison. He was accused of having recorded a Christian testimony for Mrs. Mitwalli. N.R. was released after paying 1,000 Egyptian pounds. G.N.M., a teacher, was arrested and detained at Abou Zabal Prison from October 1989 until February 1990 following accusations that he had sheltered Mrs. Mitwalli from the State Security Bureau.

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Anyad Anwar Baskharoun of Luxor was imprisoned in June 1989 on the basis of the Emergency Security Law for abandoning the Muslim faith for Christianity. He was tortured, and held in solitary confinement for 55 days in Abou Zabal Prison. Mr. Baskharoun suffered internal bleeding as a result of his treatment. He was offered medical treatment on the condition that he renounce his Christian faith and reembrace Islam. He refused to comply and died in prison in February 1990. The death certificate was falsified to show that he died of a heart attack in a hospital.

Two young converts from Islam to Christianity, M.M.S.S. and M.H.M.I.S., were arrested by officers of the State Security Bureau at their homes at night on September 28, 1990. A third such convert, H.M.I.M., was similarly arrested on the night of October 9, 1990. The three young Christians worshipped at a Protestant church in Cairo. They were detained in Abou Zabaal Prison till their release on July 13, 1991 following a major international campaign led by such human rights organizations as Christian Solidarity International, Amnesty International, and the Jubilee Campaign. While in prison the converts were tortured and given food on condition that they participate in Muslim prayers. The youngest of the three, the 21- year-old H.M.I.M. was thought to be dead after having been suspended from his shoulders and subjected to electrical shocks over a period of three days and two nights. The torture apparently came to an end once the case came to the attention of western governments. The three were held without trial on the basis of the Emergency Security Law. Though criminal charges were never brought against the young Christians, the Egyptian Ambassador in London, Dr. Shaker, explained the reason for the incarceration: "The three converted persons frequented some youth assemblies and grassroots districts, explaining the phases of their conversion and comparing Islam to Christianity in a derisive way to the former." No evidence confirming the Ambassador's accusation has ever been upheld by a court of law. The pastors and elders of the church to which the three belonged were threatened with imprisonment by the State Security Bureau unless the church stopped allowing its members to speak about their faith with Muslims..

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