Building on recent discussions regarding religious practice in Egypt, an Egyptian Parliament member, Ismail Nasr El Din, is preparing a bill draft which would remove the religious identification slot from national IDs. Nasr El Din’s intentions are to omit religious identification from official state documents as well. Egyptian national IDs, compulsory at the age of 16, carry an array of information on the holders, including sex, age, marital status, profession and religious affiliation. More open critics to the religious identification slot have called for its replacement with a slot indicating blood type, as in other countries such as Greece, Malaysia and Colombia. According to Al-Ahram, Nasr El Din justified the move by explaining that this would establish the same duties and rights before the constitution. “President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi spoke in front of the whole world last week about freedom of belief and the right of every citizen to freedom of worship,” Nasr El-Din said as per the state-media outlet. “This is a clear message from the president of the nation and we, as a legislative body, must convert what the president said into facts on the ground,” he added. Participating…
Egyptian MP to Submit Bill Omitting Religion from National IDs to Parliament
November 12, 2018
