Police lose battle over right to sport a beard
Cairo judges ended six years of wrangling on Wednesday about a 2012 police ban on facial hair for officers, ruling against the right of officers to sport long beards.
The decision reflected the state’s interest in maintaining Egypt’s police force as a “secular organisational entity”.
In Egypt, an untrimmed beard on the cheeks and chin with the upper lip shaven is understood as a sign of Salafi religious beliefs or political allegiance to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Several hundred officers started growing such beards when enforcement of the ban was relaxed during the presidency of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, which lasted from June 2012 to July 2013.
This week’s decision overturned a July 1 ruling by a lower court allowing bearded officers to rejoin the force if they trimmed their facial hair in compliance with Interior Ministry rules. In their July ruling, administrative court judges said they based their decision on employment law.
“The beards may show affiliation with banned political and terrorist organisations,” wrote Judge Mohamed Maher Abul-Enein. “But the government’s filing does not show any act or statement that proves this, and it would have been more useful to the court for the Ministry of the Interior to reveal them.” However, Mohammed Hamid Salem, the lawyer who brought the case, said: “The return of bearded officers to the employment by Ministry of the Interior violated the constitution’s definition of Egypt as a civil state and constituted a danger to Egyptian society and these men are a threat to national unity and social peace.”
“Some of these officers have religious affiliations that led them to participate in the execution of terrorist acts,” he said.
Hani Shukri, a former spokesman for the bearded officers’ group, was found to have planned an August 2016 ambush by gunmen at a security checkpoint in Monufia – a governorate north of Cairo.
Muslim scholars have long debated the significance of facial hair as a sign of piety.