383.0063/15
The Chargé in Egypt ( Hare ) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 28.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Legation’s despatch no. 2101 of May 20, 1940, and previous reports, regarding a bill submitted to the Egyptian Parliament providing for the prohibition of religious propaganda and to the Department’s telegram no. 38 of May 22, 6 p.m., 1940, advising that the Legation should be guided pending further developments in the matter by the Department’s instruction no. 413 of August 25, 1939. Reference is also made to my letter of May 22, 194036 to the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs outlining a conversation with Dr. Cleland of the American University at Cairo on this subject.
In accord with the Legation’s policy of keeping in touch with the British Embassy regarding this matter, I called on Mr. E. F. W. Besly, Legal Counselor of the British Embassy, on May 25 with whom this question had been discussed on several occasions in the past. I observed that I had been advised by several American missionaries that they had been given to understand that opposition to the bill had developed on the part of Moslem interests which felt that such a law would prevent certain Moslem religious observances and activities conducted outside mosques and that revision of the bill to eliminate such restriction of Moslem activity was being urged. Mr. Besly said that he had also heard reports from British missionaries to that effect, which, if true, were most interesting since one of the reasons why it had been difficult to criticize the bill was its apparent nondiscriminatory nature.
In my discussion with Mr. Besly I mentioned the fact that the Department had given thought to this general question last year at a time when a similar bill was up for discussion in the Egyptian Parliament [Page 501] and that it had been the opinion of the Department at that time that the enactment of such a law would so adversely affect American schools in Egypt as to constitute a violation of the obligation assumed by the Egyptian Government at Montreux with regard to American educational institutions. Mr. Besly said that the Embassy had in the past also attempted to advance a similar argument but with little success due to the fact that the Egyptian Government had always maintained that such legislature [legislation] was in conformity with the stipulation in the letter37 of Nahas Pasha38 that such institutions should be subject “to all measures necessary for the preservation of the public order”. In fact it was for that reason that the Embassy had been instructed recently (see p. 4 of the Legation’s despatch under reference) not to cite the Montreux Convention in opposing the religious propaganda bill but to confine its representations to the point that the proposed law was inconsistent with the principles of modern legislation (which incidentally is a provision of Article 2 of the Montreux Convention, although the Embassy did not apparently cite this fact in taking the matter up with the Prime Minister).
I also discussed with Mr. Besly the two points raised by Dr. Cleland of the American University and mentioned in my letter of May 22, 1940 to the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs regarding (1) the place of religious instruction and propagation of religious doctrine in the charters and curricula of American educational, medical and charitable institutions in Egypt and (2) the guarantee of liberty of worship in the Nahas Pasha letter. As regarded the first of these points Mr. Besly said he had no doubt that the Egyptian authorities would cite the “preservation of the public order” provision as a counter argument. As regarded the second point he said he could not see how a guarantee of freedom of worship could be construed to be applicable to religious instruction.
On May 27 the proposed bill finally came up for discussion in the Senate and a lively debate ensued centering around whether the bill was intended to prohibit Moslem as well as non-Moslem religious propaganda. Abdel Razzek el Kadi Bey, Rapporteur of the Committee introducing the bill, stated quite definitely that the bill was supposed to apply to all proselytizing whether Moslem or non-Moslem, whereas Mohamed El Chafei el Labbane, Director of the Criminal Section of the Ministry of the Interior who had been specially delegated to represent the said Ministry in the discussion of the matter, took the view that the purpose of the bill was to regulate religious activity of non-Moslems not sharing the faith of the majority of the [Page 502] inhabitants of the country and that it was by no means intended that the bill should apply to proselytizing by Moslems. In view of these conflicting opinions of the Rapporteur of the Committee and the Delegate of the Ministry of the Interior it was decided to send the bill back to committee for further study.
I understand in this connection that when this question was put up to the Prime Minister by the British Ambassador recently the former stated that the object was to put an end to all proselytizing because he felt that the changing of religion had unfortunate social consequences regardless of whether the person concerned was a Moslem, Christian or adherent of another faith.
Missionary representatives with whom this question has been discussed since the debate in Parliament are inclined to think that the bill will hardly come up for active consideration during the present session of Parliament which is expected to end as soon as action on the budget has been completed.
Respectfully yours,