16
August 2006
Abduction of a law
Every time I alluded to the
draft unified law for places of worship—which I frequently did—I took care to mention that MP Mohamed Guweili, head of parliamentary committee for proposals and complaints, was the initiator of the said draft
law. Guweili submitted the proposal for the law to the
People’s Assembly in May 2005, and
it was scheduled
for referral to the house,
but the parliamentary round
ended before the draft law
could be discussed. Parliamentary elections were held in December of the same year
and brought in a new Parliament, upon which Guweili again
submitted the draft law to the
new People’s Assembly. Again,
the parliamentary round ended in June without
the draft law being discussed.
It is hoped,
however, that the draft law
will be discussed
in the coming round next autumn.
The draft law stipulates unified regulations for building places of worship
for all Egyptians no matter
what their religion is. In this respect, Building Law
106 of 1976 would govern the erection, restoration,
renovation, maintenance, or demolition
works in mosques, churches and synagogues alike. Once this is achieved, the
building of places of worship for non-Muslims
would be liberated from the political and
security sway it is now
subject to. The current regulations glaringly discriminate against Copts and
thus serve to augment tensions among
Egyptians of different
religions, and make a mockery of equality and citizenship rights. Moreover, the new law, if passed, should put an end to the unquestioned
and unaccountable authority which governors and security
officials exercise in this domain, and
which they irresponsibly use to hinder and delay the
building or restoration of churches,
or to inexplicably deny permits for such works.
As
we waited in anticipation the passage of the above-mentioned law, a similar draft law
drawn up by the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) was brought to my attention. I have
no idea how far has this draft law been debated within the NCHR, but two particular articles caught my eye. The
first states that:
“After conducting all the necessary surveys
and consulting the relevant
security bodies, the
administration concerned should
decide on the license application in no more than
four months, or, in case of restoration
or reinforcement works, two months.”
The second article which drew
my attention is that the draft
law specifies:
•
The ‘administration concerned’
as “The governor of the district in which the place of worship requiring license lies;” and
•
‘The building authority’ as
“that of the local government of the region in which the place of worship requiring restoration or reinforcement license lies.”
Otherwise, the draft law of the NCHR is altogether objective and balanced. The
self-evident question is why the NCHR should
formulate a draft unified law for places of worship while a one-and half-year-old draft law has already
won the approval of the parliamentary proposals committee. The introduction of an alternative law
by the NCHR could be understood if it proposes additional freedoms. But since the NCHR-sponsored draft law maintains
political and security dominion intact, it appears that this
move seeks to abort the longed-for
goals of equality and citizenship rights.
An
alternative draft law would waste the
enormous time which the first took
to pass through the parliamentary committee for proposals and complaints. I do not perceive
any need to go through that again
other than the keenness of the NCHR to preserve political and security
sway over church building and restoration. Is this where, according
to the NCHR, the first draft law
fell short? And has the NCHR’s role
diverted from defending human rights to defending the authorities’ rights? I really see this as a serious
step backwards, with no other motive but to abduct the unified
law for places of worship.