Egypt to discuss bill that could liberate restraints on church building

Egyptian Christians are expectant as the Egyptian Parliament is scheduled to discuss a proposed bill that is believed to ease restraints on building of churches.

A leaked file of the bill proposal revealed stipulations to the new church construction rules, as reported by Madamasr.

According to the draft, heads of different churches can now submit requests to governors who should grant approval within 60 days or else the request will be approved automatically. The governor should state the reason for cases of rejection for which the church can appeal to the Administrative Court. The bill will also legalize unlicensed churches that were built at least five years ago.

Rafic Greiche, spokesperson of the Catholic Church, thinks that the bill may still pose some problems.

"For the Catholic Church, for example, there are a few unlicensed churches. The problem for the Orthodox Churches runs much deeper," Greiche told Madamasr and added, "The law also does not indicate the fate of churches for which licenses are rejected."

At least, Greiche conceded, the church would only have to deal with governors based on the new law.

"Would the new law put an end to security intervention in building churches?" asked Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher of religious freedoms at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Ibrahim worries that the same incidents under a 1934 rule would be repeated. In the said incidents, all 10 conditions for church construction were met but the state still refused to grant permission on basis of "security necessities."

In 1934, then-Interior Minister Mohamed Ezaby Pasha added 10 more conditions to the already restrictive Islamic Law of Classical Islam from the Ottoman Empire in 1856.

"Most of the churches were established through facilities provided by various governments, but the conditions of Pasha hindered the building of churches in many cases," head of the Evangelical Church in Egypt, Safwat al-Bayadi, told Al-Monitor. "Entire cities and villages in the countryside and in Upper Egypt don't have a single church."

According to Barnabas Fund, Christians in rural areas are forced to meet in tents.

A media spokesman of the Maspero Youth Union, Nader Shukri, also told Al-Monitor that Christians are forced to travel dozens of kilometers to other villages just to worship but radical Salafists prevent them from doing so, resulting in clashes and injuries.