Mada Masr, December 30, 2021. –
A ruling by the Administrative Court of Alexandria this week exempted local authorities in Alexandria of the responsibility to provide Bahais with a space to bury their dead. The ruling also affects anyone in Egypt who has a dash mark (“-”) in the “religion” field of their national identity card. The dash indicates that they are not adherents of Islam, Christianity or Judaism.
Currently, a single cemetery space in Cairo’s Basatin neighborhood is available to the thousands of Egyptian Bahais. This has led to the depletion of the cemetery’s capacity and has required the families of deceased Bahais to transport the remains of their loved ones to Cairo from all across Egypt. Such long-distance transport is contrary to Bahai burial requirements.
In Alexandria and Borg al-Arab, where most Bahais in Egypt live, families have spent years submitting their requests to local councils for dedicated burial space, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights researcher Amr Ezzat told Mada Masr. However, government employees often refuse even to file the submitted requests.
In a legal suit submitted to the Administrative Court of Alexandria a year ago, EIPR lawyers sued to obligate Alexandria’s local governorate authorities to allocate cemetery space for them on behalf of dozens of Baha’i families.
On Monday, December 27, the court refused to oblige the governorate to take action, referring to a State Lawsuits Authority opinion advising the court to reject the case on the basis that only Islam, Christianity and Judaism are recognized as religions in Egypt and guaranteed the freedom and space to worship and practice their rites.
EIPR’s lawsuit argues that the government does recognize people of other faiths or of no faith, and points to the 2009 decision to allow for people who are not Muslim, Christian or Jewish to leave the field dedicated to religious affiliation in their national IDs blank, as an acknowledgement of a fourth category of religious identification.
Under a 1966 law on cemeteries, local councils are tasked with looking into how much space is needed by different religious sects, and with proposing potentially appropriate sites and spaces to the Governor, who is then responsible for making a decision.
EIPR intends to appeal the ruling before the Supreme Administrative Court.
The initiative’s statement noted that the governor of Alexandria had consulted with the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar regarding the lawsuit, who concluded that “it is not permissible to allocate a plot of land to bury the dead who bear the mark (-) [to denote religious affiliation on their IDs]… because it leads to discrimination and division, and tears the fabric of a unified society.”
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