Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on June 17th, 2008

[Naseem Mahdi]

I think this is a matter of education. I have been a promoter of helping institutions to raise the level of education and literacy in those countries, because the biggest problem we face in Pakistan and many of the Muslim countries is illiteracy, a lack of education, and ignorance. That is why the masses are illiterate but religious, and they can be exploited by the clerics.

If we help to improve the level of education and literacy and also help to build the institutions, it would be a long-term plan, but some day we have to start it. Canada has a beautiful model to be presented to the whole world, and I'm a promoter of Canada. I say that if it is possible here, why is it not possible in other parts of the world?

This is why we are here, to create motivation on the part of Canadian parliamentarians that we should get out of our daily routines and see how millions of people are suffering on a daily basis. That's why we are here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Mahdi.

I apologize for cutting you off. However, the question and the answer were starting to go significantly over time.

Ms. Deschamps, the floor is yours.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, my apologies for my late arrival. I have probably missed some of your evidence, but I will rely on what I heard yesterday. Then, we heard from other witnesses who told us about discrimination against and persecutions of religious minorities. I was deeply touched and disturbed by the evidence they gave, which also came from individuals. The personal testimony was very shocking.

Given that we only have a little time in which to hear you and that I have probably missed some comments at the beginning of the session, I would like to let you speak while I listen. If you did not have time to fully express yourselves, if something is a priority for you and you want to tell the members of the committee about it, you can have all the time I have left. You can talk about what you want to see done, and make your recommendations to the Government of Canada.

Have other countries already taken steps or expressed positions in the international community with a view to having some cohesive response to your assertions?

[Naseem Mahdi]

First of all, thank you very much for your very kind words.

I think if this subcommittee can recommend to the committee on foreign affairs that the time has come for us to take a very tough stand against these atrocities, the foreign affairs committee should recommend to the government that we should take the approach of saying to them, “Enough is enough, and now we want action”. If this is not done, the whole world will be in chaos. It is already in chaos, but that chaos will increase.

We have experienced in the past that whenever the Government of Canada has taken a stand, countries have listened; especially in our case, Pakistan listened. This is because Canada has very strong goodwill, and people care about Canada. I travel a lot internationally, and I can assure you that when we tell people we are from Canada, people stand up and salute, because Canadian politics and Canadian foreign policy are not attaching any strings, which--

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Excuse me.

Ms. Deschamps, was that question for all the witnesses or just for Mr. Mahdi?

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

If time permits, I would like anyone who wants to add anything to the statements they have made to be able to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Other witnesses may speak too.

Mr. Isaac.

[Filham Isaac]

I need to answer Mr. Karygiannis, because I think he directed some questions to me.

In what way can they help? Everybody has helped, but I come in here without really any prejudice as to which party is in power, because we need some sort of a continuation of help with the plight of the Chaldo-Assyrians in Iraq. We've written some proposals as to how the Canadian government can assist us here, and I would be very happy to leave those behind.

Just to give you a little bit of an idea as to some of the things that are important to us, one thing, of course, is the security in Iraq. I don't know how Canada can help, other than joining with the people in any way possible--aside from going all the way to Iraq--in establishing a little bit of a security zone for our people, because there were some transgressions that occurred in the last election, in 2005, when ballot boxes were blocked so that over 150 people could not vote. We were hoping to have about five people among the members of Parliament of Iraq, and we ended up with only one. That curtails our voice being heard. Living in a democracy here, I don't think that is very democratic, and we should do something about it.

We also have to somehow help the people who are--

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm obliged to--

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I'm just wondering, sir, if I heard correctly. Did Mr. Isaac say 150,000 or 150 people?

[Filham Isaac]

It was 150,000 people.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I thought you said 150 people. Okay, thank you.

[Filham Isaac]

No, I would ignore it if it were 150. It's 150,000 people, and that would have given us another four seats in Parliament, and that is huge for us.

We could also appeal to Canada to see what we can do to repatriate those people who are stranded in Syria and Jordan. There are 300,000 people. If we are the indigenous people of Iraq, and we gradually move in there, then there will be no need for me to sit here and plead with everybody, because I'm pretty sure somehow they'll be absorbed in other communities.

We have 7,000 years of history in that land. I feel guilty for being here. I'm a true Canadian, and I love this country, but I honestly instinctively somehow feel for these people who are left there.

These are two things any Government of Canada can do to help.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

In the remaining one minute, Mr. Fanous, did you want to say anything for your community?

[Sam Fanous]

I'll try to pace it and see how fast I can go.

Just to answer this particular point about kidnapping young girls, this is now a trend in Egypt, because young Christian girls in Egypt are the most vulnerable and the easiest target for the Islamic groups and the Islamic fundamentalists. Why? Number one, they are visible because they are the only unveiled women, if you will, in Egypt. Literally, all the other females in Egypt are now veiled, so they stand out.

Now, there are organized groups like organized crime. In Egypt there are organized Islamic groups targeting nothing but young Christian girls. They go out there and do two things. They either lure them, because now it is a time of economic pressures, or they force them. Either way, they take them, they force them, they convert them, they impregnate them—they become pregnant—and they take evidence against them to implicate them so they can never come back. They have shamed their families, and that is a big thing in Egypt.

When they come back at some point or another and their families finally find out where they were kidnapped to—which is torture by itself because there is no help from the security forces in Egypt. On the contrary, they condone that, and they cover it. Finally, when the families find out and try to do something, there is no help from the authorities. They resort to the papal office. They resort to the international media to just try to do something. In the end, if they are lucky, the small minority of this group—if they are lucky they are not allowed—they are accused of converting these girls from Islam. They consider them Muslims, and now they try to bring them back to their own families, to their own Christianity, and they blame the families and they torture them. They arrest them and put them through a lot, accusing them that they are now converting Muslim females to become Christian, ignoring the fact that they were Christian in the first place.

The authorities are condoning this. Some of these authorities are helping that. This used to happen in upper Egypt and away in the south. Now it's everywhere. Now it is in Alexandria. Now it is in Ismailia, in Port Said, and in Cairo. This is becoming a trend, and we have reported that over and over and over to the authorities, but there is no help.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Fanous.

Ms. Mathyssen, would you like to begin any questions?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank my colleague from the Bloc for this important question about what happens to women, because that is of profound concern to us, of course. In regard to the suffering of women in these situations, what should the Government of Canada do in order to bring this to light, in order to offer support to the women who are suffering?

[Sam Fanous]

I would say education, education, education. You need some good coverage out there, not just American films, to get into the Egyptian media. You need more than that to educate the people. The majority of the women out there are uneducated, so you're dealing with uneducated masses that get moved or suppressed by the mullahs and the other extremists. They embed that in their minds from a very young age, and they veil them when they are three and four years old, and they embed in their minds that they have to do certain things that we consider extreme, simply because they are Muslims.

I am sure that my good Muslim friends will disagree with these measures. These are extreme measures and they have nothing to do with Islam. These are local cultures. We need to educate these people. We're not asking for troops. We're not asking for money. Send more material to educate women and young women. Through the media and through other friendly channels like this, you bring their awareness up.

It used to be a joke, and now it's not a joke any more, that the two unveiled women in Egypt are the anchorwoman on TV and Mrs. Mubarak, but by golly, you go out there and you'll see every woman in Egypt is veiled. Why? A few years back, two or three decades ago, they were not veiled, nobody was veiled. These ideals and ideologies are coming from foreign areas like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and others, and they really have nothing to do with Islam. We had Muslim friends all along. They were never veiled. When I was young they were never veiled.

We have to educate the masses, but you can hardly see credible media in Egypt or the Middle East to believe any more. So I would say that education is number one.

Thank you.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you.

As you know, last week the Parliament of Canada passed Bill C-50, and in that bill there are some significant changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. One of the concerns I have is that in these changes we may be getting away from what is an important part of our policy, and that is attending to humanitarian and compassionate grounds when looking at people who have come here as refugees. I'm wondering what your response is.

Is there a danger that in changing the law and looking at groups instead of looking at individual cases, we have forgotten too much what refugees coming to Canada may have experienced?

[Sam Fanous]

I've been dealing with refugees for over 16 years now. Unfortunately, the system in Canada would allow more bogus refugees than genuine refugees. The system needs to be looked at quite thoroughly. We are burned by that because the good people who are genuinely persecuted don't make it to Canada--number one. They are not allowed to go to any Canadian embassy and make a claim. They are prevented from doing that, which is a very bad thing to do.

When they are in Canada, who looks at them and decides that?The IRB, the Immigration and Refugee Board, and the panel members. Unfortunately, I have come across a number of them. I've been going there for several years. Some of these panel members know me and they invite me to give testimony by name.

I would tell you, from my firsthand experience, that a lot of these panel members are quite uneducated and uninformed, if not misinformed. They need to be educated. The mix of the panel members needs to be changed. You don't have enough representation out there to make the right decisions. This was reported a number of times to the ministers of immigration, and unfortunately the changes that we see here are dealing with numbers; they are not dealing with human beings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I am just going to mention that Mr. Isaac has been signalling that he has something he wants to add in response to your earlier question. Do you want to allow him a little time?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Certainly.

[Filham Isaac]

I just want to augment what my friend Mr. Fanous is saying. I stayed away from the gory stories that occurred to the Chaldo-Assyrian women in Iraq. That is the same story. While education is important, I think we as a democracy fumble the ball when we look the other way. These people know they are being watched worldwide. They probably would be a bit more aware of that.

We have tried to start a campaign. This Nineveh committee is trying to do everything possible to disseminate this kind of information, to let the people know they are being watched, but of course with the little human resources we have, there is only so much we can do.

On the government side, I am pretty sure they can do a lot better than we can.

That's all I want to say. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Ms. Mathyssen, you have about a minute and a half left, but if you'd like to ask another question, please do.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I wanted to come back to the issue of the Immigration and Refugee Board. I think the consistent evidence is that there needs to be a look at that board in terms of education, sensitivity training, awareness about what is going on internationally, and simply background in terms of historical relationships and the kinds of conflicts you have described here. Is that what you mean by education?