Egypt detains men suspected of unorthodox beliefs
Reuters (02.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (04.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Egyptian prosecutors are investigating a group of 14 detained men on possible charges of denigrating Islam by holding unorthodox beliefs, court sources said on Tuesday.
The men were arrested on Monday in the poor Cairo suburb of Matariya, where police seized books and tapes suspected of containing unconventional beliefs about Muslim pilgrimages, prayer and fasting.
State security prosecutors remanded 13 of the men in custody for 15 days on Tuesday. The leader of the alleged group, a 52-year-old government employee, was remanded in custody for the same period on Monday.
The charge of "denigrating the Islamic religion by spreading extreme ideas" carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail.
Egypt, a mainly Muslim country of 70 million, has tried a number of groups and individuals on the charges in recent years.
The arrests are seen as separate from the government's fight against radical Islamist political groups who took up arms against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak in the early 1990s.
In a separate case, two of 52 suspected homosexual men currently on trial are accused of "forming a group which aims to exploit the Islamic religion to propagate extremist ideas".
Egypt is home to al-Azhar mosque and university, regarded as one of Islam's highest religious authorities.
Egyptian Christians celebrate news of retrial after Millennium massacre
CSW (08.08.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (08.08.2001) - Website :http : //www.hrwf.net C Email :info@hrwf.net - Christians in Egypt are celebrating news that the 22 victims of the El-Kosheh riots may at last see justice.
The Supreme Court in Egypt has ordered a retrial in the case of nearly 100 Muslims and Christians accused of being involved in the violence which left 21 Christians and a Muslim dead.
El-Kosheh, a village on the River Nile 440km south of Cairo, was the site of the worst inter-religious riots in Egypt for decades over the Millennium New Year.
The violence broke out after a row over money between a shop owner and a customer and Christians say the police failed to stop the fighting.
A court earlier acquitted all but four of the 96 defendants over the deaths and even the four jailed were not jailed for murder.
Coptic Christian Bishop Wissa said he hoped this was a chance to right the wrongs which had caused such damage to the Christian community. He told the Associated Press news agency: We think justice can now prevail. There were killers and there were victims and we only want to know who was who.
One of the catalysts for the violence was the murder of two Christians at El-Kosheh in August 1998.
More than 1,000 Christians were rounded up by the police and many, including children, were tortured to try to extract a confession.
A Christian called William Shaiboub Arsal was sentenced to 15 years with hard labour despite the fact that the sole prosecution witnesses against him were two army conscripts who later retracted their statements saying they had only made them under duress.
He was quietly sentenced on the same day the court opened proceedings against the 96 implicated in the later riots. William has been granted leave to appeal to the Egyptian Court of Cassation, but it is not known when the appeal will be heard and in the meantime he is about to start his fourth year of imprisonment.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide has supported the campaign for a retrial of the 96 defendants and we are calling on the Egyptian Government to promote a culture of religious tolerance and respect for human rights.
CSW is also calling on the Government to bring construction and planning laws for non-Muslim places of worship into line with existing laws governing the construction of mosques.
Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said: Its great news that the Egyptian justice system has at last ordered a retrial of those arrested after the El-Kosheh violence. We are going to be watching developments closely and trust that the families of those who lost loved ones will at last see justice done.
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Egypt court deliberates in Saadawi "apostasy" case
Reuters (09.07.2001) / HRWF International Secretariat (10.07.2001) - Website :http : //www.hrwf.net C Email :info@hrwf.net - A Cairo court said on Monday it could rule later this month on whether forcibly to divorce outspoken feminist Nawal el-Saadawi from her Muslim husband on the grounds that she is an apostate from Islam.
The court said it would decide on July 30 whether to accept a petition by Islamist lawyer Nabih al-Wahsh, who says Saadawi had shown she was no longer a Muslim in a newspaper interview earlier this year.
If the court accepts the case, it could give a verdict immediately against Saadawi or order a trial.
Saadawi says she was quoted out of context by the newspaper. Two journalists presented a taped recording of the interview to the court in Monday's session.
"I am optimistic because the case is illegal," Saadawi told Reuters on Monday. "My lawyer was here at home this morning. He said the case is illegal."
A lawyer for Saadawi said in court on Monday the court should reject the case because a recent legal amendment says only state prosecutors are empowered to litigate in personal status law on such matters as divorce.
The government pushed the amendment through parliament after a court forcibly divorced academic Nasr Abu Zeid from his wife in 1996 in a similar case, causing the couple to flee to the Netherlands.
Saadawi's writings against the oppression of Arab women by ancient traditions, including her very personal account of the pain of female circumcision, have touched a chord with many women around the world.
But in Egypt she is often depicted as an insensitive troublemaker who gained fame by confirming to Westerners their own prejudices about Arab and Islamic culture.
Some religious scholars say a Muslim found guilty of apostasy should face the death penalty, while Egypt's mix of secular and Sharia (Islamic) laws are not clear on the issue.
Enemies of Egyptian writers have sometimes turned to violence. A Muslim zealot murdered secularist Farag Foda in 1992. Novelist and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz survived a knife attack in 1995.
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Egyptian Copts clash with police, 50 injured
By Heba Kandil
Reuters (20.06.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (22.06.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Thousands of Egypt's Coptic Christians clashed with police on Wednesday and nearly 50 people were injured on a fourth day of protests over a report about a Coptic monk's alleged sexual misconduct, security sources said.
In the latest of a rare series of demonstrations, angry Coptic youths hurled stones at police outside Cairo's cathedral after the editor of the newspaper that published the report about the monk was charged by prosecutors with inciting sedition, but released on bail.
Pope Shenouda, spiritual head of Egypt's Coptic Church, appealed to about 3,000 Copts gathered at the cathedral to refrain from violence. It was his first public appearance since the start of the demonstrations on Sunday.
The protests erupted this week after the weekly al-Nabaa al-Watany published a graphic article alleging that the monk had sexual affairs with women and then blackmailed them.
Angry Copts, whose tensions with their majority Muslim compatriots have led to bloody clashes in the past, said the report had insulted their faith.
Security sources said nearly 50 people, mostly policemen and some Copts, sustained minor injuries in Wednesday's clash, which worsened on news of the editor's release on bail.
Young Copts had gathered inside the Mary Morcos cathedral courtyard to chant protests before throwing stones at police, who tried to keep the protesters inside the church walls.
State prosecutors charged newspaper editor Mamdouh Mahran on Wednesday on counts including disturbing the peace, publishing items about a religious group that could lead to public contempt and religious sedition, and printing indecent images.
An official at the prosecutor's office said Mahran would stand trial on Sunday before an emergency state security court.
MONK EXCOMMUNICATED
Mahran is editor-in-chief of the weekly al-Nabaa al-Watany and its sister publication, the daily Akher Khabar, which made the allegations against the Coptic monk in southern Egypt. The article appeared with a photograph of a naked couple in bed.
If found guilty, Mahran could face up to five years in jail without the right of appeal, court sources said.
Mahran has denied any wrongdoing, saying his newspapers were merely keeping the public informed. The court freed Mahran on bail of 10,000 pounds ($2,570).
In an apparent bid to quell outrage among Egypt's Christian minority, Egypt has temporarily shut down the two publications, which have not reached news stands since Sunday, security sources said.
Protests -- especially religious ones -- are rare in Egypt, and are usually confined to university campuses.
About 10 percent of Egypt's 66.3 million people are Coptic Christians.
Pope Shenouda has told Egyptian television that the monk in question had been excommunicated five years ago.
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Egyptian courts stall on Copt's 'conversion' case
Pharmacist father files for custody of two daughters
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (08.06.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (11.06.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net Email: info@hrwf.net -- The debated conversion to Islam of a Coptic Christian pharmacist goes on trial again before a Cairo appellate court on June 12.
The wife and family of Dr. Hanna Kamal Hanna Morgan, 38, have been battling for more than a year to cancel the pharmacist's certificate of conversion to Islam, issued under the auspices of Al-Azhar, Cairo's prestigious center of Islamic learning and the highest Muslim authority in Egypt.
When Morgan signed the document 16 months ago, he had been undergoing treatment in Behman Hospital in Helwan for illness diagnosed by his attending physicians as paranoid schizophrenia. He was released from the mental hospital without any notice to his Christian family, who were later informed by local State Security police that he had become a Muslim.
"An Islamic group forced my brother to convert to Islam while he was being treated for severe mental illness," Dr. Raif Kamal Hanna stated on June 2. Dr. Hanna charged that his brother's forced conversion had occurred "under the blessings of local authorities" in El-Fayoum, 70 miles south of Cairo, where Morgan's wife and children live.
At a previous Court of Appeals hearing on May 14, Milad Saroufim, a prominent Coptic attorney, presented evidence to the court that the certificate presented by Al-Azhar as proof of Morgan's conversion to Islam had not been properly documented by the registration office, as required by Egyptian law.
The attorney representing Al-Azhar in the case promptly requested the court for a postponement in the case, Saroufim told Compass.
The lower court where the lawsuit was originally filed had, after months of stalling, refused to hear the case, declaring that Morgan's conversion had automatically dissolved his Christian marriage, so that his former wife had "no legal relation" with him authorizing her to open such a case.
Saroufim said he expected to deliver his closing argument on the case at next Tuesday's Court of Appeals hearing. But the lawyer said he did not expect the bench of three judges hearing the case to give their appellate decision that same day.
"I expect that the court will postpone that again," he said. "But I do expect to win this case, because justice is on our side."
Meanwhile, Morgan's family learned in early June that a court case had been opened in the El-Fayoum courts by Morgan himself, requesting custody of the couple's two young daughters. Under the statutes of Islamic law observed in Egypt, a Muslim father automatically retains custody of his minor children.
The couple's two daughters, Mirna, 6, and Dina, 16 months, were listed as Muslims on their father's new Muslim identity papers.
A hearing on this case is set for June 17 in El-Fayoum.
According to Saroufim, a mockery has been made of a court order issued three months ago to determine the mental health and legal competency of his client's husband. The local judge hearing Case No. 13-B, filed initially in El-Fayoum by Morgan's wife, had ordered the pharmacist to submit himself for a 45-day period of observation at El-Khanka Hospital, in order to ascertain his mental condition.
In May, Morgan finally reported to the hospital as ordered, but hospital officials reportedly sent him back home to El-Fayoum the very same day, Saroufim said.
The hospital then telephoned Morgan's wife, Dr. Ines Emil Kamal, requesting her to come for an interview regarding her husband's behavior and condition.
"I accompanied Dr. Ines to this hospital on May 27, and stayed with her while she was questioned," Saroufim said. Once the hospital has submitted its medical report to the El-Fayoum court, Saroufim said, another hearing date will be set in the 13-B case. The lawyer said he was prepared to object to the validity of the hospital's mental assessment.
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Egyptian pharmacist's 'conversion' case set for May 14
Coptic family appeals court refusal to hear case
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (04.05.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.05.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The religious identity of a Coptic Christian pharmacist who suddenly converted to Islam last year while being treated for severe mental illness is to be determined by a Cairo court of appeals verdict set for May 14.
One of two lawsuits opened by the Egyptian pharmacist's family, Case No. 7262 requests formal cancellation of the certificate of conversion to Islam signed by Dr. Hanna Kamal Hanna Morgan 15 months ago.
Together with another case filed to establish Morgan's legal status of mental health, the litigation has been stalled in the Egyptian courts for nearly a year.
Ever since Morgan was -- without warning -- discharged from a mental hospital last February 1 and signed papers converting to Islam, his wife and family in El-Fayoum, 70 miles south of Cairo, have been cut off from direct contact with him. Now 38, Morgan is married with two small daughters.
"We are praying, but I do not know if we will get him back," a close family member told Compass. "The State Security officials know the names of those responsible for this [forced conversion], but they are afraid of the reaction of fanatic Muslims."
Shortly after Morgan's family learned of his alleged conversion, they filed a case before the Financial Affairs Court in El-Fayoum to establish the pharmacist's status of mental insanity. If proved mentally incompetent, Morgan would not be considered responsible for his actions or capable of changing his religious status.
So in April last year, Morgan's wife went through required security police channels to request medical certification of her husband's mental health from Behman Hospital, where he was last treated. On May 2, 2000, the hospital certified that Morgan suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, rendering him mentally incompetent to make legal decisions. The hospital supervisor and three Muslim doctors who had treated Morgan signed the certificate.
But with the sensitivities in El-Fayoum, known as a stronghold for several extremist Muslim groups, the family's local lawyer opted to withdraw from the case a few months later. So Morgan's brother approached Milad Saroufim, a prominent Coptic lawyer in Cairo, for legal assistance.
Saroufim subsequently filed Case No. 7262 before the Southern Cairo Court on behalf of Morgan's wife, Dr. Ines Emil Kamal, requesting formal cancellation of her husband's signed certificate of conversion to Islam.
After considerable months of stalling, the Southern Cairo Court eventually refused to hear the case, declaring that the complainant was "unauthorized" to file the case because she was considered to have "no legal relation" to Morgan. In effect, the court was thereby claiming that Morgan's conversion certificate had severed his marriage with his Christian wife, despite the lack of any formal divorce proceedings to date.
Saroufim promptly appealed the lower court ruling, with the Court of Appeals hearing on the case set for May 14. According to Saroufim, this hearing is expected to "settle" the case.
The lawyer is also pursuing Case No. 7108, which had already been filed by the previous lawyer, to establish Morgan's mental state. Hearings on this case were postponed repeatedly when the judge insisted that Morgan's wife appear before the court. Saroufim, however, declared that there was no legal requirement for his client's court attendance in the case.
Finally two months ago, Saroufim said, the judge presiding over the mental status case ordered Morgan to report for an extended 45-day period of examination at a designated hospital, to determine his mental health and legal competency. "But he didn't obey," Saroufim told Compass yesterday. "He has refused to go and put himself under testing."
Although local sources confirmed that Morgan's wife is not being harassed directly by state security officials in El-Fayoum, the couple's six-year-old daughter is being escorted to and from her first-grade school, to prevent any attempts to kidnap her. As provided under Islamic-law guarantees of the primacy of paternal rights, Morgan's conversion certificate lists his two daughters as Muslims.
However, due to the pending legal court cases, Morgan has not yet been issued a new Egyptian identity card. This document must be changed to identify him as a Muslim before he could take legal custody of his children.
Herself a medical doctor, Morgan's wife has gone to work in a government pharmacy under the health ministry in order to support her children since her husband cut off all funds to them.
Morgan is known to be living in an apartment near his pharmacy in El-Fayoum, a source close to the family told Compass. "That is a very fanatic area of El-Fayoum," the source said. "Everyone there is protecting him from any meetings with his family, so we are afraid."
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Freedom House details Egyptian massacre of Christians
Religion Today (09.03.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (12.03.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom released on March 6 a detailed 130-page report on last year's massacre of 21 Coptic Christians (the largest religious minority in the Middle East) by Muslim mobs in Al-Kosheh, Egypt.
It outlines police complicity in the crimes, a state cover-up of the investigation, and religious bias in the trials. All of the murder suspects were acquitted on Feb. 5, 2001.
The report, Massacre at the Millennium: A Report on the Murder of 21 Christians in Al Kosheh, Egypt, in January 2000 and the Failure of Justice, also describes the Egyptian government crackdown on local human rights groups that have reported on Al-Kosheh, including prominent Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, currently on trial, in part, for exposing religious persecution in Egypt.
Among the report's other principal findings: Corruption among security forces in Al-Kosheh; government officials giving out wrong information; officials falsely shifting blame for the massacre to unnamed "foreigners;" courts using mass trials for propaganda.
The report concludes that from the outset, the government of Egypt has pursued a political strategy to conceal the gravity of the religious tensions in Al-Kosheh and to avoid the politically sensitive issue of punishing Muslims for the murder of Christians. The report is based on three fact-finding missions to Egypt and extensive interviews conducted in four countries.
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Coptic Pope Shenouda rejects Egypt clashes verdict
Reuters (06.02.2001) - HRWF International Secretariat (17.02.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Pope Shenouda, the spiritual leader of Egypt's Coptic Christians, on Tuesday rejected an Egyptian court ruling which absolved most defendants of charges related to the country's worst Muslim-Christian violence in decades.
An Egyptian court on Monday absolved 92 of 96 defendants of charges linked to the clashes in Kosheh, about 400 km (250 miles) south of Cairo, in December 1999.
The other four received jail sentences ranging between one and two years. One of them also received 10 years of hard labour. All four were Muslims.
"We will take this case to the Court of Cassation because we want to challenge this ruling...We don't accept it," Pope Shenouda told reporters in Cairo.
Of the 92 defendants who were found innocent, 38 were Coptic Christians and 54 were Muslims, security sources said.
A quarrel between a Muslim and a Christian shopkeeper on December 31, 1999 sparked violence which escalated over the next few days into broad Muslim-Christian clashes in which 19 Copts and two Muslims were killed and 33 people were wounded.
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The verdict in El Kosheh trial
THE WORD CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Announcement (06.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (12.02.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Word Center for Human Rights is deeply disappointed over the verdict issued by the Sohag Criminal Court, Dar El Salam district, in case No.1, for the year 2000, in which 96 persons were indicted, including 6 fugitives. The court acquitted 92 persons, and found four other guilty of unintentional murder and intentional arson.
It must be noted that three of the Muslim defendants were charged with the murder of eight Copts. But the court found all three not guilty despite adequate evidence. The court also rejected the civil case brought by the victims' families.
The Word Center for Human Rights had hoped that the proper punishment would be rendered.
It is also extremely important to note that the presiding judge, Mr. Mohamed Afiefy, opened the court session in the morning of Monday, Feb. 5/2001, by verbally attacking the Christian clergy, and accused them of inciting the Copts to start hostilities. This statement by the presiding judge is in violation of the law, the proper judicial proceeding, and the simple rules of administering justice, all of which require the judge to be impartial and to ignore his personal point of view in any litigation before him.
The Word Center for Human Rights plan to submit a memorandum of appeal early next week, on the grounds that the verdict violates the proper rules of interpretation of the law.
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Egypt acquits al Muslim murder suspects
Judge blames Coptic clergy for inciting El-Kosheh hostilities
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (06.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.02.2001)- Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Instead of convicting the Muslim murder suspects accused of killing 21 Christians in last year's El-Kosheh massacre, a judge in southern Egypt has accused the local Coptic clergy of responsibility for the three-day rampage.
In his opening statement before announcing the verdict on February 5, presiding Judge Mohammed Affify accused three priests in the predominantly Christian village of failing to put a stop to the rioting.
During the mayhem, which erupted between December 31, 1999, and January 2, 2000, twenty-one Christians were killed and 260 of their homes and businesses destroyed or looted in El-Kosheh and surrounding villages in southern Egypt's Sohag governate. The only Muslim victim was shot dead accidentally by a fellow Muslim.
Singling out Fr. Gabriel, Fr. Bessada and Fr. Isaac by name, Affify stated that the three priests "shoulder the moral responsibility for escalating the events," and urged church authorities to discipline them.
According to Coptic activist lawyer Mamdouh Nakhla, the judge's statement of his personal opinion constituted a direct violation of Egyptian law and judicial proceedings, "all of which require the judge to be impartial in any litigation before him." Nakhla said he planned to submit a memorandum of appeal next week to overturn the verdict.
"But we shouldn't put all the blame on our judiciary system, or on the judge," editor Youssef Sidhom of the weekly "Watani" newspaper told Compass after the verdict was released. "We should shed light on the lousy, inefficient work that has been done by the police. The police have presented insufficient evidence, so they have left the dirty work for the judge to do."
In its formal verdict, the Sohag court acquitted all but four of the 96 suspects in the El-Kosheh trial, including seven defendants who had eluded arrest. A total of 57 Muslims were being tried, 38 of them for murder. The most serious charges against the 32 Christian defendants were looting, arson and attempted murder.
According to Judge Affify, the prosecution "appeared to have had trouble identifying who was responsible for which acts" during the trial, which began last June. He justified the lack of convictions as being due to insufficient evidence, contradictory testimony, inaccurate official investigations, commonality of charges, and exaggerated reports.
Four Muslim defendants were found guilty of lesser crimes connected with the New Year's weekend massacre. None were present in the court when the verdict was announced, since Judge Affify had ordered the surprise release of all 89 defendants at the conclusion of trial hearings in early December.
Affify explained the unprecedented, bail-free release of murder suspects as a concession to approaching Ramadan and Christmas holidays for Egypt's Muslim and Christian citizens. But skeptical Coptic activists declared it a ruse to allow the perpetrators of the violence to escape the country. Although initially promised on January 9, the verdict was postponed without explanation until February 5. The stiffest penalty of 10 years in prison was meted out to Mayez Amin Abdel Rahim, a Muslim found guilty of possession of an illegal weapon
during the El-Kosheh riots. According to Nakhla, the same man had been charged in a separate, unrelated court case of killing a Muslim named Aiman Heshmat Hamdy, and of attempted murder.
The three other Muslims were found guilty of deliberately setting a fire a truck trailer, with one given a two-year jail term and two given one-year sentences.
Delivered amid tight security, the verdict was over in 15 minutes. Foreign journalists were barred from entering the court, guarded by riot police in full gear and plainclothes policemen on nearby rooftops.
News coverage of the February 5 verdict was minimal, buried in the back pages of the crime sections in major Egyptian dailies. The light sentences were "not altogether unexpected," the Associated Press reported, describing them as an apparent "attempt to avoid flaring further sectarian violence."
But Coptic Bishop Wissa of nearby Baliana village denounced the blanket acquittal of all the murder suspects as an open incitement to more killings and injustice.
"All the murderers were acquitted. That means Muslims are encouraged to kill Christians. They are being told, 'Go ahead. Kill Coptic Christians,' the bishop told Agence France Press. "This verdict means that the life of Christians has no value."
The El-Kosheh massacre was Egypt's worst clash in 20 years between the country's predominantly Muslim citizens and Coptic Christians, who constitute at least 10 percent of the population. It was preceded by a controversial murder investigation in the same village 16 months earlier, when police were accused of mistreating and torturing 1,000 Coptic villagers to force confessions implicating a Christian as the culprit.
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Ninety six of hundred acquitted in Egypt case
Zenit (05.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (07.02.2001)- Website:http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A court in southern Egypt has acquitted all but four of nearly 100 people charged with involvement in the country's worst religious violence in decades, BBC reported.
Thirty-eight Muslims had faced the death penalty for their role in the clashes, which swept the village of Al-Kosheh, about 275 miles south of Cairo, just over a year ago.
Twenty Christians and one Muslim died after a dispute between a Muslim and Christian over a piece of cloth degenerated into several days of killings and looting.
Security forces ringed the court as the judge delivered his verdict in what has been an extremely sensitive case. In the end, however, the harshest sentence was 10 years in jail for just one man, convicted of accidental homicide and illegal possession of a weapon.
Many had expected lenient verdicts on the grounds that the police had not prepared a proper case against the suspects.
But the ruling will leave many in the Christian community angry. Although 20 Christians died, no one has been found guilty of their murder. A local priest told the BBC that justice had not been done. He said security forces who had stood by while Christians were being killed had then protected the killers from punishment.
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Egypt detains 16 followers of banned Baha'i sect
Reuters (15.01.2001)/HRWF International Secretariat (19.01.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Egyptian authorities detained 16 suspected members of the Baha'i religious sect on Monday pending further investigations into charges of "propagating deviant beliefs," security sources said on Monday.
The sources said authorities were searching for 15 others suspected of belonging to the banned sect in Shawraniya, an island in the Nile near Sohag, about 400 km (250 miles) south of Cairo.
Police first arrested the 16 suspects on Sunday and authorised their detention for a further 15 days on Monday, pending further investigations, the security sources said.
In the past, some Egyptians arrested for belonging to the Baha'i sect were set free after renouncing the faith in front of a court, sources said.
The Baha'i faith emphasises the spiritual unity of humankind.
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