CAIRO - The ruling military council introduced to the Penal Code Egypt's first explicit anti-discrimination article, a long-awaited measure that seeks to preempt all forms of discrimination. The new article imposes heavy penalties, amounting to LE100,000 of fines (US$16,778) and a prison sentence of up to three months, to civil servants who carry out actions that discriminate against citizens on grounds of religion, gender, or origin in ways that infringe upon social justice, equal opportunity, and threaten social peace. Ordinary citizens who commit the same crimes will be fined up to LE50,000 (US$5,033) or be sentenced to up to three months in jail, the new article stipulates. The introduction of the article comes in response to public calls for tougher legal measures against all forms of discrimination. Some Muslim and Christian activists, however, expressed reservations against the new article, saying curbing sectarian tension will take more than just one article in Egypt's Penal Code. "This is just a faint attempt to put an end to sectarian tensions and the problems the Christians of the nation suffer from," Naguib Gibrael, a leading Christian activist told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. "But I want to tell the members of the council that they need to work harder to create a peaceful society here," he added. Egypt's Christians have always complained against their inability to build new churches or even reconstruct their old ones. The government has, meanwhile, drafted a law to regulate the construction of Muslim and Christian prayer houses. The new law, currently being reviewed by the Christian Orthodox Church and Al-Azhar for remarks, will facilitate the construction of churches. Some people, however, say that while laws are good, shared cultural grounds are of equal importance. One of these people is Atef Al-Hadidi, a scholar from Al-Azhar University who always boasts of being breast-fed by a Christian neighbour for a long time when he was a little child. "We need to change any misconceptions in inter-religious relations,” Al-Hadidi told this newspaper. “This is not a matter of law. It is rather a matter of culture," he added.
