Egypt: An Open Letter From A Baha'i To His Homeland

An article written by Yousef Shaaban was published in "Watani el-Youm" (My Homeland Today) on 25 July 2006, reported on an open letter from Dr. Labib Iskandar Hanna, a Professor at Cairo's Faculty of Engineering, representing the Baha'is. The title reads: "We are not using foreign influence on Egypt--and our religious classification [on ID Cards] is our right as given to us in court."

The article goes on to state that the Baha'is are sure that they will prevail in the Supreme Administrative Court when the government's appeal will be considered regarding the ID Card matter. This court session is scheduled for 16 September 2006.

He also affirmed that Baha'is are not using any outside pressure on the Egyptian Government to recognize the Baha'i Faith since it had been already determined by the highest Egyptian legal authorities in 1925 that the Baha'i faith is an independent religion, which had also been sanctioned by Sheikh el-Azhar. Additionally, the Supreme administrative Court had already ruled in 1983 that Baha'is were entitled to document their religion on official documents.

Hanna also indicated that the United nations had recognized the Baha'i Faith as a free-standing and independent religion. He clarified that the lawsuit was brought about because the civil registry had only allowed three religions for ID Cards (Islam, Christianity & Judaism), and that--alone--is unacceptable to the Baha'is, "as we are also entitled to register our religion."

In an open letter to "Watani el-Youm", the Engineer Labib Iskandar said: "we are an Egyptian minority, the children of this dear homeland, who are enduring a deplorable attack (as if it was the Day of Judgement) because the administrative court had simply given us our rights and allowed us to document our religion in ID Cards."

He then gave the Egyptian Baha'is' point-of-view as follows:

"This lawsuit has nothing to do with the Egyptian Government recognizing the Divine origin of the Baha'i Faith, but it is clearly about allowing the law-abiding Egyptian Baha'is to obtain ID Cards just like all other Egyptians."