The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, claims that conversion to Christianity remains prohibited in practice even though Article 46 of the Constitution says that the state guarantees freedom of belief and religion.
During a trial to have his religion changed on his identity papers, the opposing lawyer made death threats against Mr Higazi for converting to Christianity.
Without documents, Baháʼís could not be employed, educated, treated in hospitals, withdraw their own money from a bank, purchase food from state stores, or vote, among other hardships.
[6][14] A number of Baháʼí young people are without valid ID cards, a situation that has forced them out of universities and the army, placing them on the margins of society.
[1] The Baháʼí community of Egypt had approached the government on numerous occasions to plead for a simple change in the programming, if not the law, so that they could be issued valid ID cards under the new system.
Once stripped of ID cards, the Baháʼí youth essentially become prisoners in their own homes, since the authorities often set up evening checkpoints to verify the identity of young men.
[13] Likewise, young people without ID cards are denied entrance and continuing enrollment in colleges and universities, as well as service in the armed forces.
[13] On April 4, 2006, a three-judge panel of the Egyptian Administrative Court upheld the right of a Baháʼí couple to lawfully state their religion on their ID cards.
[15] The couple, Husam Izzat Musa and Ranya Enayat Rushdy, sued, stating that the confiscation of the cards was illegal under Egypt's Constitution and international law.
[16] The court ruled for the couple, citing existing precedents and Islamic jurisprudence that allow for the right of non-Muslims to live in Muslim lands "without any of them being forced to change what they believe in" and ordered the civil registry to issue new documents that properly identify them as Baháʼís.
[23] According to the IRIN news service, an Interior Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: "We presented an appeal to revoke the previous ruling on the basis that neither the Egyptian constitution nor Islamic law recognize Bahaism [sic] as a religion unto itself.
The group which is composed of the Popular Group for Change, the Egyptian Democratic Centre, the Centre for Socialist Studies, Socialist Horizons, the Arabic network for Human Rights Information, and Civil Watch for Human Rights, along with some 40 journalists, writers, artists and academics wrote: We confirm that this is not a case of the followers of the Baháʼí denomination only; it is the case of all minorities and faiths that are suffering from discrimination in Egyptian society for decades... Our attitude springs from a deep belief that calls for constitutional and political reform cannot be separated from demands for the guarantee of freedom of belief and expression equally for every citizen, regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender or color, otherwise, reform would become merely ink on paper and lose all meaning ... Today, the followers of a small denomination are sacrificed to fanaticism, but whose turn will it be tomorrow….if we be silent now?Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court on 15 May suspended the implementation of the earlier lower Administrative Court ruling that allowed Baháʼís to have their religion recognized on official documents.
During this time, the state-sponsored National Council for Human Rights held a major symposium on the issues surrounding religious affiliation and identity cards, at which the Baháʼí community offered some testimony.
[25] The hearing was, however, postponed by the Supreme Administrative Court on September 21, 2006 until November 20, to await the completion of an advisory report by the State Commissioner's Authority.
[34] The first case, which was filed in February 2007, was brought forward by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) on behalf of a Baháʼí university student, Hosni Hussein Abdel-Massih.
Abdel-Massih was suspended from the Suez Canal University's Higher Institute of Social Work since he was unable to obtain an identity card due to his religious affiliation.
[34] Since the Supreme Administrative Court's decision in 2006 found that the government had the right to deny Egyptian Baháʼís identity documents recognizing their religious affiliation, the EIPR modified the requested remedies in the case; the issue before the Court of Administrative Justice is whether Baháʼís can obtain documents without any religious affiliation or without falsely identifying oneself as one of the recognized religions.
[31] To comply with the January 2008 ruling, on April 14, 2009, the interior minister of Egypt released a decree amending the law to allow Egyptians who are not Muslim, Christian, or Jewish to obtain identification documents that list a dash in place of one of the three recognized religions.
[36][37] In late 2012 Dr. Ibrahim Ghoniem, acting Minister of Education and member of the Muslim Brotherhood stated his opinion the Baháʼí children would be excluded from the Egyptian school system.