I call the meeting to order. This is meeting eight of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
We have with us today two sets of witnesses. We have Firoze Manji from Kenya, and we also have a group of three witnesses from the Philippines.
I want to apologize in advance to all our witnesses. You are here on very serious matters. We are grateful to you for coming and we have, through surely no fault of yours and hopefully no fault of ours, very tight time constraints.
What I am proposing to do--our committee has agreed to this--is to deal first with Mr. Manji, and then after half an hour go to our delegation from the Philippines. This really does not leave as much time as you deserve. It is simply a constraint that is imposed upon us.
Mr. Manji has given a written presentation to our clerk. Unfortunately, it has not yet been translated, and our rules preclude us from handing it out at this time. We will have it translated and it will be given out within the next day or two by mail to all our members, who will then have the chance to read it.
With that, Mr. Manji, I invite you to start. I'm not sure if anybody has mentioned this to you, but our hope is that you can speak briefly enough that it will allow some questions to be asked. The floor is yours. You know your case best, so I'll allow you to begin. Thank you.