More on this story. "Egypt: Judge ejects lawyer for Christian from court," from Compass Direct News, January 13 (thanks to Jacko):
Dispute over evidence stalls bid by convert from Islam to change official ID.ISTANBUL, January 13 (Compass Direct News) – An attempt by an Egyptian convert from Islam to legally change the religion listed on his identification card to “Christian” hit a setback on Jan. 6 when a judge ordered security personnel to remove his lawyer from court.
Attorney Nabil Ghobreyal was expelled from the courtroom at Cairo’s Administrative Court following a heated argument with Judge Mohammad Ahmad Atyia.
The dispute arose after Atyia refused to acknowledge the existence of legal documents detailing the successful attempt of a Muslim man to convert to the Baha’i faith. Ghobreyal had planned to submit the court records of the decision in support of his case.
The convert from Islam who is trying to legally convert to Christianity, Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary, first submitted his request to alter the religious status stated on his ID in August 2008. He follows Muhammad Hegazy as only the second Egyptian Christian convert raised as a Muslim to request such a change.
El-Gohary received Christ in his early 20s. Now 56, he decided to legally change his religious affiliation out of concern over the effects that his “unofficial Christianity” has on his family. He said he was particularly concerned about his daughter, Dina Maher Ahmad Mo’otahssem, 14; though raised as a Christian, when she reaches age 16 she will be issued an identification card stating her religion as Muslim unless her father’s appeal is successful.
At school, she has been refused the right to attend Christian religious classes offered to Egypt’s Christian minorities and has been forced to attend Muslim classes. Religion is a mandatory part of the Egyptian curriculum.
El-Gohary also has charged that his nephew was denied a position in state security agencies because of his uncle’s religious “double life.”
“Why should my family pay for my choices?” said El-Gohary in a report by The Free Copts.
No date has been set for resumption of court proceedings, which, due to the dispute, will reconvene under a different judge.
Ghobreyal said he plans to submit a complaint to the High Administrative Court requesting an investigation of Atyia and the expulsion from court. “I am willing to continue the fight,” Ghobreyal told Compass through a translator, saying he remains hopeful of a positive outcome.
Despite a constitution that grants religious freedom, legal conversion from Islam to another faith remains unprecedented. Hegazy, who filed his case on Aug. 2, 2007, was denied the right to officially convert in a Jan. 29 court ruling that declared it was against Islamic law for a Muslim to leave Islam.
The judge based his decision on Article II of the Egyptian constitution, which enshrines Islamic law, or sharia, as the source of Egyptian law. The judge said that, according to sharia, Islam is the final and most complete religion and therefore Muslims already practice full freedom of religion and cannot return to an older belief (Christianity or Judaism)...
"There is no compulsion in religion."
However, if you try to leave Islam, we will do everything we can to prevent it, will refuse to recognize it, may take away your job, your business, force your wife to leave you, take away your children, punish your relatives, and if none of that works, it social ostracism and poverty do not work, then we will simply, if we have to, kill you.
Because, you see, as we never tire of telling the Infidels, "there is no compulsion in religion."
Having a Hotel California kinda momment here...
Okay, repeat after me..."Islam is a cult, Islam is a cult, Islam is a cult..."
Repeat until blue in the face.
Muhammad designed Islam to only move in one direction, to ever expand, and never to diminish. Islam's rules for apostasy and marriage support that notion, with its ranks always officially growing.
This conversion, Egypt cannot let happen. If a precedent is set, and that cat is let out of the bag, there's no telling what might follow. Muslims in Egypt are forbidden to deny themselves the full freedom that Islam supposedly offers, once embraced.
What a crock.
Once a country starts putting your religion on an identity card, there is no freedom of religion.
Brings to mind the Lena Joy case in Malaysia. I won't be surprized if El-Gohary starts receiving death threats from the peaceful followers of the great religion of peace, just as what happened to Lena.
DING! DING! DING!
We have a winner of tonight's lottery:
Better - with blinders on - repeat:
There's No Compulsion, There's No Compulsion, There's No Compulsion in Islam!
Did anyone hear Hillary C in the Senate today - she said she hoped that the new Secretary of State office will place more emphasis - on religious freedoms - in particular where the US is giving these countries aid - read EGYPT !!
I hope she holds true to that - if someone from the US administration would say - hey leave them Christians alone! And maybe even make it a condition of their receiving aid that - there should be no legal religious persecution -- I think that is reasonable.
Imagine sending tax-payers' money - to see it being used to torture and imprison Christians !!
Religion and reason are mutually exclusive so you can’t expect rational, reasonable, or logical behavior from anyone who gives more than lip service to it. The Egyptians incorporated it into government to enslave their populace much like the fundies are trying to do to the American populace. Voltaire said, “If you can convince people of absurdities, then you can make them commit atrocities.” There is nothing more absurd than religion.