Thank you.
My name is Sam Fanous. I've been in Canada for 37 years. I am a proud Canadian and I am a proud Egyptian—Copt, that is.
I thank my colleague here who highlighted a lot of facts. I'm not going to take you through all these incidents, but I'm going to focus on some requests—polite demands—at the end and on solutions, rather than anything else.
But there are things to highlight here. The Copts of Egypt are unique in many ways. The Copts of Egypt are the largest Christian minority among the Middle Eastern nations and the Muslim nations. That's why they are alienated in many situations and in many cases. That's why they are the envy of the Islamic terrorists, that's why they are the centre of many attacks, and that's why they are worthy of our attention and our support.
The Copts of Egypt are not Arabs. The Copts of Egypt are simply the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, the true Egyptians.
Egypt became Christian and embraced Christianity at the hands of St. Mark in 60 AD and became Christian until the Islamic invasion of 641 AD.
Due to polygamy, the population mix changed, whereby the majority of the population became Muslims, and now there is a misperception that Egypt is a Muslim nation. But the indigenous people of Egypt, the Christians, are the Copts, and they have rights and they have been denied rights. They are a minority without rights, they are a minority without representation whatsoever, and they are denied all rights.
They are not militant. They are very peaceful. That's why you don't see much fighting going on for them to obtain rights. But they are going through peaceful and legal channels and the international media, trying to voice it to the world, in order to bring attention to their plight.
I guess that is enough said about it. It wouldn't take much for anybody to find out about this. It's in the international media. It is with all the human rights organizations. You can turn to any of the honourable members, such as the Honourable Jim Karygiannis, who went down to Egypt himself and has seen it firsthand. It has been reported to the U.S. Congress, to the U.K. Parliament, and to the western world for quite some time now.
I think it's time for action. I'm not here to repeat what my colleague said. I appeared before the foreign affairs committee a few years back and I've come here today to try to stress what we need today.
I'm going to summarize by saying it's really one thing that we are asking the Canadian Parliament to do. This one thing is twofold. There is no denying that the Christians, the Copts of Egypt, are under severe persecution, but there is no mechanism to recognize this persecution. So the first thing we want the Canadian Parliament to do is to recognize it.
The Canadian Parliament did something truly Canadian, of which we are all proud, when they recognized the plight of the Armenians and the massacre that happened to the Armenian people. We were very proud Canadians when this happened. We're asking the Canadian Parliament to again make us proud today and recognize the persecution of the Christians of Egypt, the Coptic people.
There is no mechanism for those who are under severe persecution to claim refugee status or come to Canada. So the first thing we are asking for today is to create a mechanism in the Canadian embassy in Cairo—with all due respect, not through the local Muslim staff or the staff who are against the Christians of Egypt, but through Canadian staff coming from Canada—to hear some of these cases of severe persecution and allow them safe passage to Canada.
The second thing we are asking for today, which I am going to focus on, is this. Some of our Coptic people made it through to Canada, miraculously, and they claimed refugee status here in Canada. Unfortunately, I would say that the IRB has failed them, and failed quite a few of them, because of their lack of knowledge and the lack of resources. Some of the IRB panel members, with all due respect, probably are not well trained to know the issues of the Coptic community and the Coptic issues.
The IRB needs to revise its rules. The IRB needs to review its panel members and probably needs to assign some Coptic people and some other Christians, and also other good Muslims whom we all know, who will listen without being partial. We need the IRB to be more impartial.
The IRB failed Mr. Magdi Youssef. It's a very famous case, just like that of Maher Arar, which was an embarrassment to Canada and to all of us. They sent him back to Egypt despite what he told them. They sent him back to his torture in Egypt. The Canadian government was embarrassed, and finally they did what they had to do or should have done a long time ago. Through miracles, they brought him back to Canada, after the Canadian media picked it up.
We don't want a repeat of this. We don't want to send our Coptic refugees to their torture in Egypt. Enough is enough. We need to look at it more seriously. We really need some panel members with knowledge and resources to review these cases at least one more time and give them an opportunity before they ship them back to their torture. We don't want a repeat of Maher Arar's case here.
In ending, I'd like to thank you for listening to the plight of the Coptic people, those who are in Egypt and those who are in Canada today.
Thank you very much.