Human Rights and Democracy - Official Documents

In Egypt, the constitution provides for freedom of belief and members of non-Muslim
groups recognised by the government are generally able to worship without
harassment. However, Christians and members of the Baha’i faith, which the
government does not recognise, face personal and collective discrimination in many
areas of daily life. At Egypt’s Universal Periodic Review we called on the Egyptian
government to accept and implement recommendations to end legal provisions and
policies which discriminate against members of religious minorities and to adopt a
new law for the construction and repair of places of worship for all religious groups.
We have also raised our concerns about violence involving Egypt’s religious
communities, such as the fatal shooting of seven people outside a church in Naga
Hammadi on 7 January 2010 and the bomb attack on a Coptic Church in Alexandria
on 1 January 2011. In a statement, Minister for the Middle East and North Africa
Alistair Burt sent condolences to those affected and stressed the importance of
promoting tolerance in the face of the attack, which we believe was designed to
provoke violence between Egypt’s Christian and Muslim communities.
It is important that the political process which follows the resignation of Hosni
Mubarak on 11 February 2011 includes all parts of Egyptian society. We will
continue to urge the Egyptian authorities to promote religious tolerance and revisit
policies which discriminate against anyone on the basis of their religion.
The domestic legislative framework on religion in Laos is such that only registered
denominations may operate legally. For Protestants, in practice, this means that
only those under the umbrella of the Laos Evangelical Church (LEC) or Seventh Day
Adventists are legal. This situation leaves many other Christians vulnerable to the
complexities of church politics and LEC Party relations, which fails to protect their
freedom of religion. There is a preference for Buddhism in the constitution and there
continues to be cultural antagonism towards non-Buddhist religious activities,
particularly Christianity, which is often portrayed as a foreign religion. In May, at the
Universal Periodic Review of Laos, we called on the Lao authorities to guarantee the
right to religious freedom and to ensure state officials were aware of their duty to
protect this right.
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