Mr El Gohary and his daughter fear for their lives' after converting Maher al-Gohary has converted from Islam to Christianity. In spite of facing death threats, he's engaged in a legal battle to have his changed religion recognised on his official Egyptian documents.
We drive through the chaotic streets of Cairo to meet Mr Gohary's lawyer at a petrol station. His client lives in hiding, and doesn't disclose his address. He faces threats to his life - as a result of abandoning Islam for Christianity. When we meet, in a small first floor office on an anonymous Cairo street, Maher al-Gohary is matter-of-fact about the dangers he faces.
"I am afraid. Many, many people can kill me and my daughter anytime," he says. I asked him whether he felt these threats to his life were serious. "Yes," he replied. "Anyone may kill us in the street." His teenage daughter, also a Christian, sits at her father's side. She, too, has been warned about the consequences of religious conversion.
"While I was going to school, someone stopped me and told me if my father does not go back to Islam, they will kill him and kill me," she tells me. Legal recognition Her father's legal challenge is a simple one. He wants his state identification documents amended, so that his religious status is described as Christian. Such a change would also mean his daughter could receive Christian religious education.
His lawyer, Nabil Ghobreyal, has already represented his client at several legal hearings - but no judge has yet issued a final verdict. At the most recent, on 7 February, Mr Ghobreya believes he made a convincing case that Egyptian civil law offers no obstacles to religious conversion. He believes the real problem is that the law is being ignored.
(c) Christopher Landau
BBC Religious Affairs correspondent, Cairo
1 comment:
The BBC actually covered this story? I am pleased but mystified. Many people seem to have a strange belief that if there are Christians in a Muslim nation it means that that nation has "freedom of religion".
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