Today the Baha'i International Community (BIC) takes the significant step of publicly expressing concern about the intensification of the persecution of Egypt’s Baha'i community by Egyptian authorities.

In 1960, President Gamal Abdel Nasser issued a decree banning all Baha'i activities, dissolving Baha'i institutions, and confiscating all Baha'i properties, including their cemeteries. This decree officially institutionalized the state-sponsored discrimination of Baha'is, denying them basic rights and recognition.

For more than six decades, thousands of Egyptian Baha'is, who are loyal citizens of their country, have endured extensive state-sponsored discrimination and persecution. The policies and practices of these Egyptian institutions deny Baha'is their basic civil rights and national ID cards, disrupt family integrity, including by separating married couples and barring family members from living in the country, deny them burial rights and access to cemeteries, and subjects individuals and communities to invasive surveillance.

The BIC believes these policies are intensifying and that there has been no indication from the Egyptian authorities of any intention to change their deplorable approach—even as the Baha'i community has repeatedly sought agreeable resolutions of these issues.

The policies and practices that Egyptian authorities are pursuing against the Baha’i community have caused great suffering to many Baha'is throughout the country, with the apparent aim of suppressing Baha’i identity and the ability of Baha’is to enjoy basic civil rights.  They are denying the Baha'i community its fundamental rights to the freedom of religion and the practice of their peaceful Faith, and hindering their right to live normal, dignified lives with family, and to earn livelihoods.

The changes required to eliminate the negative implications of the 1960 decree are fully within the power of executive Government, as they only involve executive decrees and do not require any legislative or constitutional amendments.

Ahead of Egypt’s next Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations, a human rights process designed to offer the Egyptian Government recommendations to improve the human rights of all its citizens, the BIC calls on UN member-states to urge Egypt to end its discrimination and persecution of the Baha'i community.

We encourage member-states of the UN Human Rights Council to make five specific recommendations to Egypt at the January 2025 UPR session which will assist in alleviating the suffering of the Egyptian Baha’is.

1. Allocate land for Baha'i burial in various regions of Egypt.

2. Appoint a government liaison for Egypt’s Baha'i community to address their concerns.

3. Establish an official entity to oversee marriage, divorce, and inheritance matters for individuals whose national ID cards show generic religious identifiers.

4. Uphold the right of Baha'is to freely practice their faith.

5. Remove the names of Baha'i individuals from airport arrivals watch lists, whether Egyptian or foreign nationals.