Source: Watani
Date: 2009-04-27
In an Easter message to expatriate Copts, President Hosny Mubarak stressed that no-one can harm the unity of Egypt’s Muslims and Copts, both of whom constitute the common, tight-knit texture of the Egyptian community. Every member in that community, Mubarak said, enjoys full citizenship rights and believes that religion concerns God while the homeland belongs to all. The President said: “I tell you as president of all Egyptians that we will never allow attempts at conspiracy or vilification to cause division between the two wings of the nation. We will fight culprits by the force of law, and Egypt will remain a safe homeland for all its children without the least doubt of any bias or discrimination.”
Even though the President was addressing expatriate Copts, his message relayed by the media at the forefront of the news, reached Copts and Muslims in Egypt. It undoubtedly produced a general feeling of comfort, while at the same time raising a few questions that beg answers. That such a declaration has come from the head of the State implies that the State views itself as the entity which incorporates all Egyptians and secures their rights as full citizens with full equality, with no bias or discrimination. This in itself confirms that the citizenship clause which comes at the forefront of the Egyptian Constitution is the sole standard which governs rights, legislation, and laws. However, the realistic implementation of citizenship rights and the materialization of the President’s message from a mere congratulatory note into a fact on the ground, remains the focus of skepticism.
Copts know very well that President Mubarak is a moderate, and believe him when he says that Copts and Muslims may only be distinguished according to their faithfulness to the homeland, the Egyptian community, and their adherence to the law. But they also know that the tools to implement such notions are the laws, regulations, supervisory authorities, and mechanisms of accountability and questioning that are in place in the community. In Egypt these are obviously replete with flaws and deficiencies which interfere with the materialization of equality and non-discrimination.
It is impossible to boast of equality and non-discrimination while current legislation and procedures flagrantly discriminate between Muslims and Copts regarding the building of places of worship. The discrimination begins with the absolute ease with which Muslims are allowed to purchase or are allocated the best and most spacious plots of land to build mosques, as contrasted by the absolute difficulty with which Copts may be allocated land or allowed to purchase land to build a church. Permits required to build and equip mosques with all necessary utilities are swiftly made available, whereas the same permits are next to impossible to obtain in the case of churches. The same open discrimination is also displayed in renovation and restoration procedures; permitted so easily for mosques and so forbiddingly for churches. Over and above, while the building of mosques requires no security approval, that of a church pre-conditions such an approval which, besides being not guaranteed, is usually open ended where time is concerned.
It is no secret that a bill for a unified law for the building of places of worship has been lying in the offices of Parliament for some five years now. Even though the bill has wide support among MPs, it has not yet been placed on the agenda of any parliamentary round so far. The absence of an official explanation for such a move has naturally given rise to conjecture, with some claiming that President Mubarak has not given the bill the green light yet.
Justifications are frequently offered for the current discrimination in the building of places of worship, but these justifications are no more than lame excuses. It is sometimes claimed that there is no need for the law since the president has ceded his power of approving permits for renovations and restorations of churches to the governors, and now only retains the right to approve permits for new churches. This move, it is claimed, has facilitated church building. But any observer can obviously tell that nothing has been made easier as long as any permit pre-requires a security approval. President Mubarak has repeatedly boasted that he never rejected an application for a permit to build a new church, but this is besides the point since it concerns only the applications that were allowed to reach his office and says nothing of the countless others that never reached the President.
Regardless of the number of procedures required to build a church or mosque and their respective difficulty, the only measure of real equality will be the passage of a unified law that affords neither Muslims nor Christians any preferential treatment.
Worth noting, however, is that discrimination between Muslims and Copts is not merely confined to the building of places of worship, but involves other aspects which I plan to discuss at length in subsequent articles.
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