By: Ahmed Qenawy
Lawyer and legal researcher

     The Shiites in Egypt are suffering violating their principal human rights. Though there were times, specifically in the 40s through the 60s of the last century, when these rights witnessed a relative improvement, these times had ended with the Shiites and the Shiite belief as they always were, under common siege.

     What draws the attention, the fact that not ignoring all the human rights of the Egyptian Shiites and creating a state of darkness around them was due to political reasons, not jurisprudential ones.

     The modern evolution of the Shiite thought in Egypt was in relation to an ideological proximity between the Sunni and the Shiite thoughts, attempted by the proximity group (Al-Taghreeb Group) in the middle of the 1940s, this activity lasts till the 1970s, when Al- El-Bayet Association (The People of the household Association) was founded in 1973. Due to the strong relation between the Sadat's regime and Iran, during the rule of the Shah, the circumstances of founding the association were helpful at first. When the Iranian revolution started, with the expansion of the Islamic political trend, a severe campaign was launched against the Shiite though on several levels. One of these levels, definitely, was the security level, after the media one reached its top with the many writings against the Shiite thought.

      There was a change in the attitude towards the Shiite belief. After legally pronouncing it equitable Islamic thought by the highest religious institution in Egypt, and the many important figures stating it like all the other Islamic schools, their voices and the legal pronunciations became weak in facing the severe campaign launched and backed by an Arab- Egyptian official institutional support. The regimes learned that, when their authority is threatened, they should follow every method to save it, even by violating the basic rights norms.

      In 1979, when the Iranian revolution started, Al-Elbayet Association was eliminated upon a decision issued by the Egyptian government, its mosque, named after it, was confiscated as well. Though the association had a ruling stated its right to re-practice its activities, the Egyptian government did not execute the ruling and obstructed it by several means. In the course of the last five years, many Shiites in Egypt were arrested, upon different allegations, indicating the state of suppression, and the desire to prevent them from practicing their rituals and their rights to belief. Notable, none of these Shiites groups were charged with involving in any violent or fanatic actions.

     The official Egyptian attitude towards the Shiites, is not basically depending on security reasons, above these reasons, it makes benefits from the wide delusive three decades-campaign about the Shiite thought. Using tens of books, and thousands of essays raising doubts around the Shiite belief, describing it once with disbelieving, and other with recanting Islam.

      Generally speaking, the public thought settled on considering them as an astray group, unlike the legal proclamations issued by the religious institutions in Egypt in the 1960s. Sheikh Shaltut, Al-Azhar Mufti at that time, proclaimed that the 12 Shiite though is an Islamic school, that could be followed like the other Islamic Schools. This proclamation was in consistent with the opinions of several juristic men. But the misleading campaign did not leave space for these proclamations to be heard.

      Despite the rich heritage of the proximity between the Sunni and the Shiite thoughts in Egypt, and the good communication between the Shiites and the Egyptian Islamic powers, on their top, Al-Azhar and the Muslim Brothers, the campaign of deluding, did not leave a chance to increase and build on this heritage.

      All that happened alongside with strictly disallowing the Shiites to express their opinions, distribute their ideas, present their different visions, either through writings to the newspapers, or through establishing a publishing house to reply freely on these numerous misleading campaigns. It seemed that there was a coalition between the authorities and the men of thought. The Shiites had to pay a high price for this tie.

      The picture, though was too bad, seemingly it started to get better, for reasons related neither to the authority, nor to the Shiites themselves. Improving the situation is related to the growth in media openness on several levels, helped in eliminating the impacts of the campaigns. Especially that many Shiites figures, organizations and states, seemed to adopt situations close to the public wishes.

     Iran for example, a Shiite state, has many good situations towards the central Arab issues, that are better than the situations of many other regimes. Also, Iran has invented its political mechanism, though being incomplete and the many reservations on it, it remains much more better than the reality in many Arab states.

     The Lebanese Hezb Allah Party, as an organization, is classified by the majority as a leading organization in the Arab Resistance, that attract admiration, in a time the Arab citizen's admiration is not attracted to anything.

      The official Egyptian dealing with the Shiites still adopts a state of prevention, veiling and rights denying. Their rights to expression remains denied in media and associates by not authorizing the social Shiites associations in Egypt, the security harassments remain as usual, adding that, some Islamic powers are worrying about real Shiite existence, which would be able to present different and enlightened Islamic visions.

     Precisely, it could be decided that, those who belong to the Shiite thought in Egypt, as a religious thought, are facing internal problems, the most important of them are:

1. References non existence
2. Mosques non existence
3. the rareness of the Shiite writers
4. Security pressures
5. Medial darkening

     There is no doubt that if the Shiite trend remained darkened around, prevented from its freedom of expression and deprived of its safeguarded rights as a religious group, that would be a violation to the human rights safeguarded by national laws and international treaties, and a waiving of rights that were guaranteed for this trend more than 50 years ago.