Religious Freedom continues to be at Risk in Egypt
May 30, 2012: As Egyptians go to the polls on June 16 &17 to replace ousted President
Hosni Mubarak, Christian minorities were anxious to see if the next government would
end restrictions on religious freedom and attacks on religious minorities that had
been on the rise the past couple of years. Egypt was one of 16 countries that
the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom singled out for particular
concern in its 2012 annual report, released in March. Egypt made the list for the
second year in a row. "Over the past year, the Egyptian transitional government
continued to engage in and tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations
of freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief," the report said. Violent
sectarian attacks targeted Coptic Orthodox Christians in 2011, it said. About 100
Copts were killed, according to the report, surpassing the death toll of the previous
decade. In most of the more than 40 sectarian attacks, the perpetrators were not convicted,
the report said. "This high level of violence and the failure to convict those
responsible continued to foster a climate of impunity, making further violence more
likely," the report said. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported
that the transitional government also failed to prevent the Egyptian media from vilifying
religious groups including Coptic Christians, Jews and Baha'is. That classification
as a "country of particular concern" encourages the State Department to take diplomatic
and economic actions intended to improve religious freedom in those countries. The
commission members and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor Michael Posner have discussed religious violence in Egypt, as well as in China.
Posner visited Egypt in April of last year. The other countries listed for concern
this year were Myanmar, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China,
Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. As
in Egypt, many of the violations of religious freedom included attacks on religious
minority members, it said. "Across much of the Middle East, Christian communities
that have been a presence for nearly 20 centuries have experienced severe declines
in population, aggravating their at-risk status in the region," the report said. The
commission also maintains a watch list of countries where it says trends need to be
monitored before they become severe religious freedom violations. The list includes
Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, and Venezuela.
Egypt had been on the commission's watch list since 2002. The recommendations
to the U.S. government about Egypt emphasized the need to "press the transitional,
and future civilian government to undertake reforms to improve religious freedom conditions,
including repealing decrees banning religious minority faiths, removing religion from
official identity documents, and passing a unified law for the construction and repair
of places of worship." In Egypt, some changes have started to take place, the
report said. In early 2012, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Armed Forces, known for
using deadly force against opponents and protesters lifted the "Emergency Law" under
which it restricted human rights such as freedom of religion. The supreme council
took control of Egypt after Mubarak was removed from power in February 2011. The
report cited Egypt's blasphemy laws affecting other groups and individuals, including
Ahmadis, Quranists, Christians, and Sunni, Shiite, and Sufi Muslims. Under the law,
members of religious groups who hold other than the mainstream Islamic beliefs or
whose beliefs are considered potentially harmful to the community may be detained
and prosecuted. On Feb. 1, a comedian from Cairo was sentenced to three months in
prison for "contempt of religion" and fined because of the characters he portrayed.
The commission was established by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.
The law also established the Office of International Religious Freedom in the State
Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, whose staff monitors religious
persecution and discrimination worldwide. The commission is an independent, bipartisan
government agency charged with reviewing violations of religious freedom throughout
the world and making appropriate policy recommendations to the president, secretary
of state and Congress.