There's a rumpus in Egypt over reports that police in various parts of the country have arrested more than 150 people for publicly breaking the fast during Ramadan.

Unlike some Muslim countries, Egypt has no specific law against fast-breaking and the wave of arrests seems to be the work of some especially religious-minded police officers. However, the authorities are supporting them on the grounds that public fast-breaking is a form of "incivility" covered by the Egyptian penal code. Bikya Masr reports:

Ahmed Mekki, the vice-president of the Court of Cassation said that the penal code criminalises this action and is punishable under Egyptian law.

He said that police, however, have no right to determine the penalty for the crime and must file a record against the individual and refer them to the prosecution’s office.

If the prosecution finds no reason for the individual to have broken their fast, they are then transferred to the criminal court where a penalty, most likely a fine, is delivered.

Several Egyptian columnists and rights activists have attacked the move. “This ... reveals that extremism has reached some policemen,” Gamal Eid, of the Arab Network for Human Rights,told The National. “Citizens have the right to observe Ramadan or not, even taking into accounts the feelings of others. It’s up to each individual. There is no penal code for these things, and no one has the right to enforce it on others or punish them for not doing so.”

Meanwhile, clerics at al-Azhar are backing the punishment of those who break the fast in public. “People are free not to fast, but privately; doing so in public is not a matter of personal freedom, but it reveals contempt for those who are fasting, for Ramadan and for the fasting as an obligatory religious duty,” said Sheikh Abdel Moati Bayoumi, a member of al-Azhar's Islamic Research Centre.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 11 September 2009.