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Muslim Converts to Christianity – Mixed Marriages – Exit Procedures

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Muslim Converts to Christianity – Mixed Marriages – Exit Procedures Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: EGY17719 Country: Egypt Date: 21 December 2005 Keywords: Egypt – Coptic Christians – Muslim converts to Christianity – Mixed marriages – Exit procedures This response was prepared by the Country Research Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Questions 1. An article from a website of “International Christian Concern” (persecution.org) entitled “Christian Captured and Threatened with Death after Trying to Leave Country” from “Barnabas Fund” Egypt, dated 2 December 2003 reported that the Christian husband of a Muslim convert to Christianity has been apprehended trying to leave Egypt. He was then held in the custody of a “notoriously cruel and vindictive security official”. Is there any independent verification of this event? 2. Have similar events been verified as having occurred? 3. What are the difficulties faced by a couple in Egypt where the husband is Christian and the wife is a Christian convert from Islam? 4. Anything else of relevance. RESPONSE 1. An article from a website of “International Christian Concern” (persecution.org) entitled “Christian Captured and Threatened with Death after Trying to Leave Country” from “Barnabas Fund” Egypt, dated 2 December 2003 reported that the Christian husband of a Muslim convert to Christianity has been apprehended trying to leave Egypt. He was then held in the custody of a “notoriously cruel and vindictive security official”. Is there any independent verification of this event? The incident referred to by the Member was widely reported in the Christian media. On December 2003, Compass Direct reported that Boulos Farid Rezek-Allah Awad, whose wife had converted to Christianity from Islam, had been arrested at the Libyan border while attempting to leave Egypt: A Coptic Christian secretly married to a woman convert from Islam was apprehended for the second time last week while trying to leave Egypt for Canada. Boulos Farid Rezek-Allah Awad, 31, was stopped at the Libyan border on November 25 and detained by Egyptian border police for 12 hours. Once the authorities had confirmed Rezek-Allah’s identity, he was refused exit permission and released. Upon returning to Cairo, security police summoned him to their Lazghouly headquarters for interrogation and told Rezek-Allah that he was blacklisted and would never be allowed to leave Egypt. An officer monitoring the case since Rezek- Allah’s first arrest nine months ago demanded to know the whereabouts of his wife, Enas Badawi Yousef Guirguis, 27. When told that Enas had managed to leave the country, the policeman vowed to find her. “I’ll bring her back and cut her into pieces in front of you,” he reportedly told Rezek-Allah. Sources in Egypt say Rezek-Allah’s only hope to leave Egypt and be reunited with his wife is through direct intervention by President Hosni Mubarak or Interior Minister Habib al-Adli (Baker, Barbara G. 2003, ‘Egyptian Christian Captured at Libyan Border’, Compass Direct, 4 December Attachment 1). An earlier report about this case was published on the Worthy News website, in September 2003, when Bolis Rezek-Allah was arrested at Cairo airport after his first unsuccessful attempt to leave the country: Bolis Rezek-Allah was pulled off an international flight this afternoon in Cairo, Egypt, and is being held by Egyptian secret police. Rezek-Allah, who had been granted an immigrant visa to Canada, was on the plane to leave Egypt when police arrested him. (‘Christian held by Egyptian police’ 2003, Worthy News website, 26 September – http://www.worthynews.com/christian-persecution/escape-from-egypt.html – Accessed 2 December 2005 – Attachment 2). In May 2004, Compass Direct reported that Boulos Farid Rezek-Allah Awad had escaped from Egypt and that he and his wife had subsequently been granted refugee status in Canada: Thirteen months after Egypt jailed and tortured a Coptic Christian pharmacist for marrying a former Muslim woman, Boulos Farid Rezek-Allah Awad has finally been allowed to emigrate from Egypt to Canada. Rezek-Allah flew out of the Cairo International Airport to Canada in March, shortly before his Canadian immigration visa was due to expire. A few weeks earlier, his wife Enas Yehya Abdel Aziz had escaped the country to claim refugee status abroad. Egyptian security police officials told Rezek-Allah last November that he was permanently blacklisted from leaving Egypt. They vowed to track down and punish his wife for her “illegal” marriage to a Christian. In a telephone interview from an undisclosed location in Canada, Rezek-Allah told Compass that he assumed that the Egyptian authorities somehow learned that his wife had managed to slip out of Egypt without being identified and arrested. “So after they lost hope of catching Enas, they allowed me to depart from Egypt,” he said… Rezek-Allah said that he himself did not know all the details surrounding his wife’s recent escape from Egypt. But after she managed to leave the country, the Canadian government granted her refugee status, citing the religious persecution she faced in her homeland for converting from Islam to Christianity… Rezek-Allah admitted that it had been a long, stressful 13 months since he was arrested and separated from his wife under the threat of never being reunited. “But I think now, I begin to forget all this,” he told Compass. “God has healed my mind and my heart” (Baker, Barbara G. 2004, ‘Christian Couple Escape from Egypt’, Compass Direct, 18 May – Attachment 3). 2. Have similar events been verified as having occurred? Only one reference to a similar incident was located in the sources consulted. The case was documented in a 1993 press release from the Jubilee Campaign. It involved “a twenty-six year old convert from Islam to Christianity who was arrested by Egyptian State Security Officers on 10 October 1992 at Cairo International Airport when she attempted to leave the country to seek asylum and join her fiancé in Europe”: The case of Hanaan Assofti, a twenty-six year old convert from Islam to Christianity who was arrested by Egyptian State Security Officers on 10 October 1992 at Cairo International Airport when she attempted to leave the country to seek asylum and join her fiancé in Europe. Assofti reportedly said she was released only after signing a statement under duress, indicating that she had converted to Christianity and been baptised. Police told her father that she had intended to leave for Europe, where Christians would employ her as a prostitute. The woman’s parents were advised that she should not be permitted to leave home without an escort for a period of one year. She has been regularly beaten by family members who are trying to convert her back to Islam (‘Jubilee Campaign Raises Concerns With Egyptian Government Ministers 1993, Jubilee Campaign website, 8 October – http://www.jubileecampaign.co.uk/world/egy11.htm – Accessed 12 December 2005 – Attachment 4). No other reports of similar incidents were located in the available sources. 3. What are the difficulties faced by a couple in Egypt where the husband is Christian and the wife is a Christian convert from Islam? The sources consulted indicate that there are a number of potential difficulties facing couples in circumstances where the husband is Christian and the wife has converted to Christianity from Islam. RRT Research Response EGY17522, dated 26 September 2005, recently examined the issue of Christian converts to Islam who reverted back to Christianity. The response details a number of issues that are relevant to this case, particularly with respect to the difficulties involved in changing identification documents (RRT Research Response 2005, Research Response EGY17522, 26 September – Attachment 5). The US Department of State states that “According to Egypt’s Constitution, Islam is the official state religion and Shari’a (Islamic law) is the primary source of legislation; religious practices that conflict with the official interpretation of Shari’a are prohibited” (US Department of State 2005, International Religious Freedom Report for 2004 – Egypt, 15 September – Attachment 6). “Islamic Shari’a stipulates that Dhimmi [believers of other faiths] should be ruled according to their own religious codes. Correspondingly, Egyptian legislation, in accordance with Shari’a, grants non-Muslims a certain degree of autonomy in issues relating to personal status ‘by way of exception’” (Saleh, Yustina 2004, ‘Law, the Rule of Law, and Religious Minorities in Egypt’, The Middle East Review of International Affairs, Volume 8, No. 4, Article 7, December. http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2004/issue4/jv8no4a7.html – Accessed 20 September 2005 – Attachment 7). However, in cases where there is a mixed marriage, Islamic Shari’a law is applied, regardless of the religions involved. According to Shari’a law, it is not permissible for a Muslim to convert to another religion. A 2004 paper published by the Middle East Review of International Affairs, discussing conversion in the context of traditional Islamic (Shari’a) law, states that “if one rejects Islam after believing in it, he/she becomes an apostate and is subject to the death penalty”. The author maintains that while apostasy is not prohibited by Egyptian law it is considered a violation of public interest: According to Shari’a, a person is free to adopt or reject Islam. This is based on the verse “There is no compulsion in religion. Truth stands out clear from error….” (Koran 2:256). However, once the choice is made, the person assumes certain responsibilities. Accordingly, if one rejects Islam after believing in it, he/she becomes an apostate and is subject to the death penalty.
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