An 24-year-old Egyptian man who was raised a Muslim converted to Christianity when he was 16.   The government refused to issue revised identification papers, and he filed suit in a bid to force official recognition of his conversion. Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy launched his court case now because he and his pregnant wife, also a Muslim convert to Christ, want their child officially recognised as Christian from birth.

Though Egyptian law does not forbid conversion from Islam to Christianity, it provides no legal means to make the change. Converts to Christianity usually hide their identity to avoid torture and forced recantation at the hands of family members and security police.

Hegazy, whose wife Zeinab is four months pregnant, said that he wants his child to be born with Christian papers. The couple, who were forced to hold an Islamic wedding ceremony because of their legal status as Muslims, know that a Christian ID card will allow their child to take Christian religion classes in school, marry in a church and even openly attend services without fear of harassment.
. . .
Hegazy, a native of Port Said, is the first Muslim-by-birth to openly challenge the government’s restriction of conversion away from Islam.

Not only that, Mr Hegazy’s lawyer has been sued and threatened for taking the case.

Mamdouh Nakhla of the Kalema Center for Human Rights has taken Hegazy’s case, telling Compass from Cairo today that the lawsuit has caused him “big problems.”

Several Muslim clerics and lawyers headed up by Sheikh Youssef el-Badry have opened a case against the lawyer on charges of causing sectarian strife and baptizing Muslims.

A source close to Nakhla told Compass that Egypt’s security police, the State Security Investigation (SSI), called the lawyer to tell him to withdraw the case or he may be killed.

The charge of “causing sectarian strife” is rich.  Egyptian Muslims frequently attack Coptic Christians for no apparent reason, other than anti-Christian animus, with few or no legal repercussions.

An average of over a thousand Egyptian Christians convert to Islam every year with no legal problems.  Converting from Islam to Christianity (or, indeed, any other faith) is legally impossible because, under Egypt’s constitution, sharia is the foundation of the legal system.  Sharia is generally interpreted as outlawing “apostasy” from Islam.

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UPDATE (8 Aug.): The lawyer has succumbed to intimidation and withdrawn from the case, saying he does not want to offend Muslims.  Mr Hegazy has been forced into hiding after being denounced in the Egyptian press.