CAIRO (Reuters):

An Egyptian court has ruled that the state has no obligation to recognise the right of Christians who convert to Islam to change their minds and revert to Christianity, a human rights group said yesterday.

The Court of Administrative Justice ruled that recognising such changes of religion would violate a ban on apostasy which most Muslim jurists say is part of Islamic law, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said in a statement.

The ruling reverses the position the same court had held up to September 2006 when the former president of the court retired. In 22 previous rulings, the court had said that refusing to recognise a citizen's reversion to Christianity was unjustified interference by the state and a form of coercion.

The human rights group said it regretted the decision. "(It is) yet another setback for the right to freedom of religion and belief," the statement added.

Islamic law above all

The Egyptian constitution says Egyptians have the right to freedom of religion and the right to change their religion, but it also gives a special status to Islamic law, which by many interpretations undermines some of those rights.

The human rights group quoted a 2004 ruling by Egypt's mufti, the senior official exponent of Islamic law, as saying tha such people were apostates, it was up to the civil authorities to decide what civil rights they have.

In practice, the Egyptian state insists that Egyptians register as Muslims, Christians or Jews. Egyptians who adopt other religions face bureaucratic harassment.

The human rights group said the administrative court issued the new ruling on April 24.