UPDATE: Baha'is Denied Official Recognition

Let's get the bad news out of the way. The EIPR's press release sums it up:

Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court today found the government may not recognize the Bahai’i faith in official identification documents, leaving Baha’i Egyptian citizens unable to obtain necessary documents that must include a citizen’s religion, such as birth or death certificates and identity cards.

Sandmonkey offers more bad news:

...One of the reasons in the Judge's opinion regarding the verdict has been that Baha'ism totally opposes the concept of Jihad, which is apprently such a vital part of Islam in the Judge's eyes, that he deemed the religion incompatible with an islamic state like Egypt.

A story in the Middle East Times explains the stakes for the 2,000-strong Baha'i community in Egypt:

Ragi Labib, a young Egyptian university graduate, cannot find a job, buy a car, or open a bank account. By next year, he may not even be able to prove his identity. Why? Because he is a Bahai...

"We don't mind omitting religion from ID cards altogether, or being allowed to insert 'other' in the religion field. But we don't want to lie about our religion on official documents," the 25-year-old said. Now he fears that, despite being born in Egypt to Egyptian parents, his own children will not be recognized as Egyptian citizens.

But let's look at the silver lining on this dark cloud. We would like to salute the brave activists, predominantly Egyptian Muslims, who came out to the court to rally on behalf of their fellow citizens on the Baha'i faith.

Nora Younis has already vowed to keep up the struggle, announcing plans to produce a documentary on the problem.

Despite the massive setback, and unnerving reports of the popular reaction to the court verdict, these activists are forcing Egyptian society to define whether it will guarantee the individual rights of all its citizens. By showing up in force on behalf of Baha'i citizens, these activists are at least showing that there are Egyptians who refuse to be silent bystanders to civil rights repression.

And perhaps even more importantly, they are forcing intolerant officials to take absurd stands in public, like denying the existence of a religion.

Comments

[arthemis]

Egypt should be proud of its activists. As an Iranian, I hope for the day that Iranian activists inside Iran will similarly stand up for the Baha'is. It would be a sign of maturity, of course, but foremost, this would mean that there would be more freedom in Iran...

[Nora Younis]

Its indeed a black commedy as blogger "Bahaie Masry" calls it.. I only met Bahaies at court and later the same evening.. Listening to stories of their daily struggle and their coping mechanisms gave me a restless night till the idea of the documentary came to full fledge the following day.. It will be a 10 minutes online video accessible to everone and hopefully with English subtitles. I am surprised you know about it though since I spoke to very few people on my plans! ?! :-)