Members of the Bahá'í community had requested that the Alexandria administrative authorities allocate a piece of land to be used as a burial site for its members because, at that time,, only a single cemetery space in Cairo's Basatin neighbourhood was available to the thousands of Egyptians of the Bahá'í Faith. This resulted in the depletion of the cemetery's capacity and forced families of deceased Bahá'ís to transport their loved ones' remains to Cairo from all across Egypt.

The legal representative of the Bahá'í community argued before the Alexandria Administrative Court that local administrative authorities had previously approved the allocation of burial sites for individuals who are not affiliated with the three officially recognized religions in Egypt — Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. He noted that the Cairo Governorate had leased land to the Indian Embassy to cremate the bodies of deceased Hindus in 1964. The Cairo authorities had also granted Bahá'ís the right to bury members of their community in a separate piece of land in 1965. He added that the Governorates of Ismailia and Port Said had approved the allocation of burial sites to the Bahá'í community in 1944 and 1949. Therefore, on the grounds that local governments had previously allocated burial sites to individuals not affiliated with the three recognized religions, the Governorate of Alexandria had no right to reject the Baha'i community's request that a new burial site be allocated for its members.

The reason given for not allowing the appeal by the court was that the Egyptian state recognizes only Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as religions. This was based on the opinionof the Islamic Research Academy affiliated with the Al-Azhar, the main Islamic institution of Egypt. The Islamic Research Academy claimed in a report submitted to the court that providing a burial site for the Bahá'í community would "lead to discrimination, further division, fragmentation, and rupture of the fabric of one society."

In another decision issued on December 20, 2022, the Administrative Court of the Governorate of Port Said rejected a petition submitted by members of the Bahá'í community to allocate a piece of land to be used as a new burial site by the community. In this case they had asked that a burial site should be located on a piece of land that had been confiscated in the 1970's for which no compensation was forthcoming. This request was also disallowed. [EIN Newswire]

They had been arrested on the 31st of July at the start of yet another crackdown against the Iranian Bahá'ís. Thirteen Bahá'ís were arrested in the raid including Afif Naeimi. Sabet, Kamalabadi and Naeimi were members of a group of people known as the "Yaran," or "Friends" of Iran, which until 2008 served as an informal leadership of the Iranian Bahá'í community. All seven of its members were arrested in 2007 and 2008 and jailed for a decade. [BWNS1631; BIC News 1AUF22; Iran Press Watch 14DEC22; Iran Press Watch July 31, 2023]

The letter starts with the statement, "Your country is blessed with remarkable ethnic and cultural diversity." (para 2). Indeed, there are about 250 ethnic groups in the DRC and 240 identified languages, four of which have been chosen as official regional languages with French being the common language of Instruction, business, national administration and external relations. More than half the population live in a rural setting and just less than half of the population is under the age of 15 years. [Britannica]

More information about the Faith in the Democratic Republic of the Congo can be found in Bahaipedia and Bahá'í Media.

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