By Yasmine Ghania
CAIRO, Oct 13 (Reuters) - In a Cairo cemetery shaded by palms and tangled shrubs, pale graves are packed so tightly that in some places only narrow strips of sand and broken pavement separate one family’s plot from the next.
This is the last remaining burial place of Egypt's Baha'i community, a religious minority long on the margins of official life, and it is quickly running out of room.
As it fills, the cemetery has become a symbol for the community of the bureaucratic obstacles and restrictions they say complicate everything from school enrollment to pensions and marriage registration.
"God forbid that this area becomes completely full. If that happens, we would have no other places where we can bury," said Joumana Labib, a 25-year-old architect whose extended family is buried there.
The Baha'i faith, whose members are scattered across different continents and believe their 19th century founder Baha'u'llah is a prophet, was brought to Egypt by merchants in the 1860s, not long after it originated in Iran. With current numbers in Egypt estimated in the thousands, they are a tiny minority in a mainly Muslim country of about 110 million.
The Egyptian constitution guarantees religious freedom, though mainstream Islamic scholars view the Baha'i faith as heretical and officials are often reluctant in practice to recognise religions outside the main Abrahamic faiths.
BURIAL REQUIRED WITHIN ONE-HOUR JOURNEY
While Islamic tradition requires burial within a day, Baha'i practices allow a body to be moved no more than one hour from the place of death, creating particular challenges.
Burial grounds once used by Baha'is in the port cities of Alexandria and Port Said have been filled or reassigned over the years, leaving many families to transport bodies to Cairo, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a leading Cairo-based rights group.
Community members say requests for new burial grounds in Alexandria and Port Said — where much of Egypt's Baha'i community lives — have been rejected without clear written explanations, said Marina Samir, who heads EIPR's freedom of religion and belief work.
"Death becomes, instead of a time when people are trying to comprehend their loss, a logistical process," Samir said.
Egypt's government information agency and the governorates of Alexandria and Port Said did not respond to requests for comment.
Last year, in a response to a UN human rights report, Egypt's government said it "does not impose any restrictions on personal belief or religious affiliation, including adherence to the Baha’i faith".
Based on government data, there were "sufficient burial sites to meet the needs of all citizens", it said.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly stressed the need for religious coexistence and said the state works tirelessly to fight discrimination and promote tolerance.
MARRIAGE WITHOUT RECOGNITION
A landmark 2009 court ruling allowed those who do not follow Islam, Christianity or Judaism to leave a dash in the religion field on their identity documents.
The change allowed Baha'is to avoid declaring a faith they do not follow, but still left them facing practical difficulties.
One of the biggest is establishing Baha'i marriages in official records. Baha'i couples are often registered as "single" even after decades together, which can complicate child registration, inheritance, pensions, health insurance and family records.
Hanan Kamal El-Din, 65, said her identity card describes her as single, although she married in a Baha'i ceremony 45 years ago and has two children in their 40s.
"What harm would recognising this marriage do to society?" she said.
Like other Baha'is, she won an individual court ruling recognising her marriage in 2020. But that decision was overturned by a higher court in January this year, a ruling other Baha'i couples now fear could affect them as well.
Ahmed Helmy, 49, also won a court ruling allowing his documents to show he was married, but said his wife has already been removed from the family section of his account on the government’s digital services platform.
He worries his status on his identity card will revert to "single" when he next renews it.
"If I do not have proof of marriage, I cannot add my wife to health insurance," he said. "Anything I own, my wife won't be able to inherit. Anything she owns, I won't be able to inherit."
For Labib, the community's shrinking burial space and the bureaucratic hurdles are connected by the same demand: to be treated as an equal citizen.
"I am not asking anyone to accept my religion," she said. "I am asking them to accept me as a person in this country."
(Reporting by Yasmine Ghania, Ahmed Fahmy and Sayed Sheasha; Writing by Yasmine Ghania; Editing by Alexander Dziadosz and Aidan Lewis)