CAIRO, June 18 (AFP) - Egypt's Family Affairs Tribunal on Monday postponed a decision on a suit brought by a lawyer to declare the marriage of leading Egyptian feminist Nawal al-Saadawi void on the grounds of apostasy from Islam.
The hearing, which follows last month's state security court sentencing of Egyptian human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim to seven years in prison, was attended by Italian and Tunisian human rights activists as well as Saadawi.
The court deferred a decision on whether to go ahead with the case until July 9.
"I do not understand how we can accuse someone who expresses her opinions. Where is the freedom of expression," leftist Italian politician and former EU commissioner for humanitarian aid Emma Bonino said before the hearing.
"I think the declaration of human rights is not applied well in Egypt," she said, alluding to the international treaty, which most of the world is party to.
Saadawi, a prolific novelist who has been translated into English, thanked the human rights activists for attending the session as proof of "human solidarity which exists whatever one's religion, ethnicity, sex or colour of skin."
Nabih Al-Wahsh, the Egyptian lawyer who filed the complaint, first accused Saadawi in April of slandering Islam in a media interview, but his case was dismissed by the general prosecutor's office last month.
However, the family affairs tribunal decided to hear the petition, which aims to divorce Saadawi from her husband, Egyptian intellectual Sherif Hetata.
Wahsh argues that Egypt's penal code, based on Islamic law or Sharia, permits the state to divorce Saadawi from her husband, due to her slandering Islam.
Saadawi was quoted as saying in March by the independent weekly Al-Midan that the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca was "a remnant of paganism" and that the Koran made no mention of an obligation for women to wear the Islamic hijab, or scarf.
The writer and feminist has denied "scorning" Islam, saying she had been misquoted by the newspaper possibly for "commercial or political ends."
Saadawi, a psychiatrist, has published 40 books with themes of women's rights and the battle against female circumcision.