The upholding of human rights in Egypt has progressively deteriorated since the revolution of 25th January, 2011, according to a new report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
The UK-based religious freedom advocacy says in the report that the deterioration – which has included a repression of human rights “in the name of counter-terrorism” and comes against a backdrop of rising terrorist attacks as well as a severe economic downturn – has occurred despite encouraging gestures from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
These have included when he became the first serving president to attend a Coptic Christmas Mass in 2015 and his declaration of periods of national days of mourning after an attack on Egyptian Copts in Libya in February, 2015, and the bombing of a Cairo church in December last year.
Despite this, the report says there are an increasing number of blasphemy cases being brought before the court, that perpetrators of sectarian attacks “generally enjoy impunity”, that new legislation concerning church construction and renovation still enables building applications to be rejected on the grounds of “numerous ambiguous prerequisites”, and that “securing official recognition of conversion from Islam remains challenging”.
The report also noted that while Christianity is protected in the constitution, other faiths are not, and describes state-sponsored religious initiatives depicting minority faiths and atheism as threats, and legislation banning certain minority faith groups, as “particularly concerning”.
The report also shows that attacks on Coptic Christians have included everything from banning prayer and discrimination in the employment market to forced evictions, the destruction of churches, kidnapping, violent attacks and killings.
