CAIRO: Local schools are denying Bahais the right to enroll their children, five months after an Egyptian court recognized the right of members of the minority religion to leave the religious affiliation field on birth certificates and ID cards blank.

The US Congress will be voting soon on resolution H. Res. 1303 calling on the Egyptian Government to respect human rights and freedoms of religion and expression in Egypt.

The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf [R-VA] and cosponsored by several other congressmen, was submitted to the US House of Representatives and referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 24, 2008.

Pre-2004 ID card with "other" on it

Today, a Cairo court (Administrative Court, First Degree, District-7) heard a challenge to the court ruling of 29 January 2008 allowing the Baha'is of Egypt to obtain ID cards and birth certificate with dashes "--" or "other" entered for religious classification in these documents.

CAIRO, April 30 (Reuters) - Official foot-dragging means Egypt's Baha'i religious minority is still struggling to get identity papers, despite a landmark court ruling seen as a challenge to the Muslim religious establishment, a rights group says.

Since the 29 January 2008 court ruling and its subsequent acceptance by the Ministry of Interior, no Baha'i in Egypt has been able to receive an ID card or a birth certificate.

The Ministry, through the media, has declared its decision not to appeal the ruling and its intention of allowing dashes "--" in place of "Baha'i" in the religion field of these official documents.

Baha'is in Egypt continue to face a variety of hardships on a regular basis because of being deprived of holding these important official documents that are required for their daily living.

In its 2 April 2008 edition, Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported that the Ministry of Interior has just decided that the only option that will be given to the Baha'is of Egypt is to insert dashes "--" instead of leaving the religion field blank or writing "other" on ID cards.

The Ministry clarified that "leaving the religion field blank might open the door to inappropriate manipulation of official documents."

Egypt's Ministry of Interior has announced, through its sources, that it will not appeal the 29 January 2008 administrative court ruling that allowed the Baha'is of Egypt the issue of ID cards and birth certificates.

Based on its interview with sources in the Ministry of Interior, an article in Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper revealed the news today. It states that the Ministry has approved the ruling and decided not to appeal even though the law permits it to do so.

You may watch Cairo's TV program which was referred to in the previous post regarding the Egyptian Baha'i student (Kholoud), who was ultimately allowed to sit for her high school final exams. The program's title is "the Egyptian Street."

As the Baha'is of the world celebrate today the end of their yearly "fast" and the advent of their new year, the case of Kholoud, the young Egyptian student who was--because of belonging to the Baha'i religion--prevented from registering for her exams by the head of "Examination Control" in Cairo, captured the outrage of the Ministry of Education as well as the public opinion in Egypt.

Kholoud Hafez Abdou is a 17 years old Egyptian student who, like all other students in her stage of education, must sit for the final exams that allow her to graduate from high school and enter university education.

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