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[Adventurer]

Last Updated: Monday, 18 February 2008, 11:58 GMT

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Islam and the apostasy debate
By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst



Ayatollah Khomeini said Salman Rushdie must be killed for apostasy
Leaving Islam can be fraught with difficulty.
Despite the well-known Quranic injunction "There is no compulsion in religion", issues of religious freedom have persisted into the 21st Century.

A recent report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (co-authored with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights) throws a spotlight on problems in Egypt.

Suppose a Christian woman converts to Islam, for example when she marries a Muslim man, but later wants to convert back.

Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch relates what happened in one case.

"We had one woman telling us how, when she converted to Islam, it was 'Just hold on, when you've finished your coffee your documents will be ready'.

"But in trying to convert back to Christianity, she's had to go to court - she's been completely frustrated in those efforts."

Identity crisis

The problem was aggravated when the Egyptian state computerised identity documents over a decade ago.


Egypt's Bahais find it hard to uphold their faith on official papers
Christians seeking to re-convert encountered bureaucratic hassle in getting their ID cards changed.

Another issue arose from the fact that the state officially recognises only three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

This put the small Bahai community in an obvious difficulty.

Human-rights groups have welcomed two recent court cases as steps in the right direction.

In one, Bahais were allowed to leave blank the entry for religion on their ID cards.

In the other, a group of Christians seeking to re-convert were told the state should acknowledge their change of status on their identity documents.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7250532.stm

[stillnotking]

Hey, bureaucratic hassles are a marked improvement from "Off with their heads!"

Maybe Islam is developing a liberal tradition after all.