An Egyptian administrative court ruled on Thursday that the interior ministry must strip Egyptian citizenship from Egyptians who have married Israelis, in order to protect the country's national security.
Shaimaa Amin, a private citizen, had filed a lawsuit demanding the interior minister and prime minister strip her brother, who has been living in the UK for 12 years, of his Egyptian citizenship because he is married to an Israeli woman and has children with her.
According to Amin, her brother holds political, religious and social views "that do not suit Egyptian society" and that his marriage to an Israeli woman and having a child with her constitutes "a threat to Egypt's national security."
In its reasoning, the administrative court stated that although marriage was one of the personal freedoms granted in the Egyptian constitution according to Article 62, personal freedom does not entitle the citizen to have freedom from all restrictions and from the joint responsibility to protect society and the state.
"It is crystal clear how the occupation state of Israel discriminates racially against all those who are not of Jewish origin. The defendant should have worked hard to make his wife and son give up their Israeli nationality and come to live in Egypt," the court said in its reasoning.
The court also revealed that the defendant defended his decision to marry an Israeli woman saying that Israel was a defender of human rights unlike the Arab states and was contributing to improving the world and fighting terrorism.
The defendant also added that his marriage with an Israeli woman made his future and that of his family safe.
Not the first lawsuit from its kind
This is not the first lawsuit to demand that the Egyptian government and the minister of interior strip the nationality of Egyptians who marry Israelis.
In 2010, the High Administrative Court upheld a court ruling issued by an administrative court in 2009 demanding the cabinet and the interior ministry strip Egyptians of their nationality if they marry Israelis of non-Arab origin.
The Egyptian government appealed the ruling but the High Administrative Court rejected the appeal.
In 2015, the administrative court issued a ruling obliging the cabinet and the interior ministry to strip the nationality of Egyptians who are married to Israelid, in accordance with the Egyptian nationality law.
According to Article 16 of the law, the Egyptian government has the right to strip the nationality of citizens to protect Egypt's national security and its interests.
There is no official figures on the number of Egyptians married to Israelis, but estimations suggest there are thousands of Egyptian men married to Israeli women, many of Arab origin.
