At last, someone is talking sense on the issue of Egypt's discriminatory new personal status law for non-Muslims. Yesterday, the security forces graciously allowed a group of Coptic lawyers ("of a secular disposition") to hold a 30-minute protest at the justice ministry.

The lawyers rightly pointed out that all citizens should be treated equally before the law, that religion is a personal matter and that the state should not interfere in church affairs.

Democracy, they said, means heeding the will of the citizens, while religion does not necessarily express the will of all people.

On President Mubarak's orders, the Egyptian government is rushing through a new and ill-conceived personal status law because the Coptic church, under the anachronistic leadership of Pope Shenouda III, claims the right to decide which of its members can be divorced and remarried.

Last month, in two separate cases, an Egyptian court ordered the Pope to let two Copts to re-marry after being divorced. Thattriggered a crisis in church-state relations which the new law is intended to resolve.

The whole messy business could be sorted out very simply, not by creating special laws for non-Muslims, but by allowing civil divorce and marriage – but the church fears that it would then start to lose control over its members, and for political reasons the Mubarak regime is anxious to appease the church.

Quoted in al-Masry al-Youm, Amira Gamal, coordinator of the lawyers' protest, says: "Society should help Christians obtain their natural and legal right to divorce without having to change their denomination or circumvent the law and the church." 

Changing to a more amenable denomination is one route for getting a divorce, but even that is far from simple. Gamal explains: "Changing denominations has become a big business. It could cost as much as US$10,000, paid to the church."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 25 June 2010.