The Egyptian parliament has commenced processes to criminalize atheism in the predominantly Muslim North African country.
Under existing Egyptian laws, it is illegal to insult or defame any religion. Blasphemy arrests carry a conviction of up to five years while the new proposal if approved means just refusing to believe in God could be punishable by law.
The proposal was made by head of the Parliament’s Committee on Religion, Amro Hamroush stating that lack of belief in God was an insult to the Abrahamic religions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
“It must be criminalized and categorized as contempt of religion because atheists have no doctrine and try to insult the Abrahamic religions,” Hamroush said while announcing the proposed law.
Reports indicate that the move has the backing of the Country’s highest Islamic religious institution, the Al Azhar. In defense of the law, an Azhar official said it was necessary ‘to punish those who have been seduced into atheism.’
Egypt along with Mauritania, Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia were African Nations listed in a 2017 report as being places were blasphemy and apostasy laws carry the death penalty.
Completing the list are: Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
But founder and leader of a U.S. based rights group challenged the proposed law. Ani Zonneveld says even Islam did not criminalize atheism, quoting a Quranic verse to back her position.
“This criminalization of atheism contradicts the very essence of the Quran, verse 2:256, ‘There is no compulsion in faith, ‘” while further describing the legislation as “anti-Islam.”
Last month, Egyptian security forces arrested Ibrahim Khalil, a 29-year-old computer science graduate. Khalil, from a Christian family, is accused of “administering a Facebook page that promotes atheism.”
“The Facebook page has been used to distort, defame and exploit the Quran. It was also found to contain comments questioning the existence of God,”Chief of the Dokki prosecution office Hassan Ali said.
Although an unnamed US survey says there are up to three million Atheists in Egypt, Senior Government clerics are quite sure of one thing: there are exactly 866 atheists in Egypt – roughly 0.001% of the population.
This precise figure means Egypt harbours the highest number of atheists in the Arab world, according to claims by Dar al-Ifta, an official wing of government that issues religious edicts, citing research released by a regional polling group. Morocco came in second, with supposedly only 325 atheists. Yemen is reported to have 32.
