12/24/2018 Egypt (International Christian Concern) – A report recently released by the Project on Middle East Democracy details how Egypt’s 2016 church legalization law has had a minimal positive impact. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has made several high-profile gestures towards Egypt’s Coptic Christian community. The passage of the 2016 law was promoted as a pathway to streamline the church legalization system.

Just over 500 churches have been officially recognized through this new process, out of the over 3000 who applied following the law’s passage. The slowness of the committee to review applications has come under heavy criticism.

Equally concerning are two provisions within the law which says that a church may be denied legalization for security reasons and that a church should be proportional to the Christian demographic in the area. The population of Christians is considered a state secret, so the application of determining proportionality is not possible in an accurate way. That a church can be closed for security reasons is also concerning. Authorities have used even the possible threat of a security incident to close a church for an indefinite amount of time. There have also been examples this past year of authorities participating in threatening or even attacking a church.

For interviews with Claire Evans, ICC’s Regional Manager, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator: press@persecution.org.