After years of harassment and imprisonment, Mohamed Hegazy abandons his unprecedented legal quest.
In 2007, Mohamed Hegazy became the first Egyptian to seek to change the religion on his identification card from Muslim to Christian. But after nine years of harassment, imprisonment, and torture, last week Hegazy publicly declared his return to Islam.
In a YouTube video, Hegazy blessed Muhammed as “the chief-most among Allah’s creation,” spelled out the Shahada (the Islamic proclamation of allegiance), and apologized to his family.
"I want nothing from this video,” Hegazy said in an apparently rehearsed statement. “I have no desires. I will not appear again in the media. I will not appear again publicly. … I say this out of my complete free will. I am under no pressures from anyone. I am not being held by any agency, nor am I under any pressure of any kind. And that’s it.”
[Editor’s note: Hegazy’s attorney has told Morning Star News that he thought Hegazy, who was in prison at the time, was terrified, stating, “I personally think that he recorded this video to get out.”]
Hegazy broke new ground in 2007 when he sued to change his religious identification from Muslim to Christian. The judge rejected his request, and Hegazy appealed. The case was suspended indefinitely in 2010 while the Egyptian government adopted a new constitution. Hegazy took a new “Christian” name, Bishoy Armeya, but his 2010 government ID card still showed his original “birth” name.
Hegazy became a Christian at the age of 16, in 1998. In 2002, he was briefly jailed and tortured, then later—with his family—went into hiding. He applied for the ID card change so he could raise his child as a Christian, he said. Eventually, his wife and two children …
