One year ago, the Law for the Building and Restoration of Churches went into effect and stipulated that non-licensed churches would be legalized provided they submit the required documents to a dedicated committee. Each single case had to complete its application. This means that all 3730 applications submitted to the committee had to fully meet the requirements otherwise they would have not been accepted and listed by the committee.
Therefore, I was thinking that the committee will finish its work on a good rate, but the truth is I was disappointed by the slow rate. In 11 full months, the committee issued approvals to legalize 220 out of the 3730 churches and service buildings, which means that 3510 applications are still waiting in line.
The committee took almost one year to look into 6 per cent of the cases. At this pace, we have to wait till 2034 to complete the list. This is 17 years since the committee started its work. Does this agree with the spirit of the constitution, law, justice and equality among all Egyptians!
It is worth mentioning that the committee for legalizing unlicensed churches was formed according to the PM decision number 199 for 2017, issued on 26 January 2017. The decision stipulated that the committee would be chaired by the Prime Minister, and would include as members the ministers of defense and military production; housing, utilities, and urban development; local development; legal affairs and the House of Representatives, justice; and antiquities; as well as representatives of the General Intelligence, the Administrative Supervisory Authority, the Interior Ministry s Homeland Security Department, and the sect in question. This high ranking committee was supposed to show some achievement giving the importance of the law and its elite members. I just want to say that the law till the day proved to be a punch of decisions that are far from being applied on the ground.
