“No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice…” Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed and ratified by Egypt on 14th of January…..1982.

Yesterday, I read the following: Schools reject enrollment papers of Bahai children.

Now for my point to be made, I shall take a few steps back, and explain how all this Bahai issue started.

Egypt recently replaced handwritten personal identity documents printed on paper with computerized ones. The only three religions available for a citizen, by default on the computer, are Jewish, Christian & Muslim.
Now keep in mind, that with the old hand written ID’s, you could have been written down as a Baha’i, in PLAIN WRITING!

So, A group of people belonging to the Bahá’í Faith called for their rights to be identified and documented as Bahá’ís, on all legal papers.

December 16th, 2006:
The supreme administrative court concluded that Bahá’ísm is not recognized as one of the heavenly religions, in accordance with the 1923 Egyptian constitution (articles 12 and 13 - that are believed to be the constitutional route of articles that followed - the religions entitled to protection and freedom of practice are the three heavenly religions: Islam, Christianity, & Judaism)

And so, Baha’is would be forced to commit fraud, by claiming a religion they do not belong to, in order to obtain the documents necessary for them to open bank accounts, apply for jobs and enroll in schools.

January 29, 2008:
The Egyptian court rules that their necessary documents shall be granted, as long as they omit their religion from any documents, and place instead of it a hyphen. Yes, an actual hyphen, ( - ).

It should be noted, that the Ministry of Interior has reportedly been stalling on issuing those new hyphenated ID’s for Bahais

Now you must remember this : According to the Constitution of Egypt, any new legislation must at least implicitly agree with Islamic laws.
Islamic law DOES NOT recognize Bahaism as a religion in the first place.

So in other words, a hyphen, means you’re done for!

Which brings me to my issue, the thing really choking me up...Baha’is are now identified with a hyphen, making it that much easier, for everyone out there, almost giving them the right, to discriminate against Baha’is. You might as well paint the word Kafir on their foreheads!
Sadly enough, some people actually believe that this hyphen is a step towards recognizing Bahaism as a religion. How can a ( - ) be any sort of any recognition!

It’s almost a clever trick, ” You don’t want to be listed under a religion you do not belong to? Ok, You got it...” No room to complain now, you wanted out of Muslim/Christian/Jew, you got - !

The worst part is, some people call for their death and some for their exiling.

Shady Samir Sobhi, a Bahá’í citizen and a well known blogger on the subject, , believes that the religion section on the ID card is a an act against human rights in itself, if the result is special benefits or discrimination based on the declared religious affiliation.

Now aspiring for higher goals, Baha’is are calling for an omission of the religion field off identification papers altogether!

In Conclusion, I have nothing left to say but to share with you the headline that sparked this article, once more...

Schools reject enrollment papers of Bahai children.....

” I support everyone’s right to the practice, declaration, and adopting of the religion of their choice “