Parliamentarian advocates Baha'is rights

CAIRO - 28 November 2018: Parliamentarian Mohamed Fouad submitted a motion to Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal to request a briefing from Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on difficulties faced by Baha'is to practice their creed in a breach to constitution articles no. 53, 64, and 92.

The problems Baha'is face are embodied in the inability to issue national identity cards bearing their religion, and licenses to build worship places. Also, the state does not allocate lands for Baha'is to build cemeteries, and they are subject to the personal status law articulated for Muslims, while Christians follow the Church.

The constitutional articles cited by the parliamentarian in the motion are respectively concerned with equality among citizens regardless of their gender, religion, race, or class; freedom of belief and rituals practice; and general freedoms.

Fouad also cited the statements of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in World Youth Forum 2018 as he said that citizens have the right to have faith or not, stressing that all religious sects have the right to build their worship place.

Furthermore, the parliamentarian referred to the international agreements on human rights endorsed by Egypt.

According to the Bahai.org website, “Bahá’í beliefs address such essential themes as the oneness of God and religion, the oneness of humanity and freedom from prejudice, the inherent nobility of the human being, the progressive revelation of religious truth, the development of spiritual qualities, the integration of worship and service, the fundamental equality of the sexes, the harmony between religion and science, the centrality of justice to all human endeavors, the importance of education, and the dynamics of the relationships that are to bind individuals, communities, and institutions as humanity advances towards its collective maturity.”