Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 24th, 2011

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Chairman, do I have some time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have 20 seconds.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Okay, that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

It actually gives me a chance, if you don't mind, to do a quick follow-up on something Ms. Grewal had raised and was given a partial answer to.

You mentioned a total number of approximately 200 million to 250 million Christians persecuted on a more or less daily basis. Then you mentioned a university where a record is kept of this. That's...?

[Don Hutchinson]

It's Penn State university. I know the authors are Grim and Finke, but I forget which one is with the Pew Forum and which one is at Penn State university. Last December they published the book The Price of Freedom Denied, which is an examination of religious freedom on the face of planet earth today. In that book, they indicate the documented figures I've referenced.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That's very helpful; that's the reference we need.

Let's go to Professor Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate your presence and the information you provided to us.

Mr. Hutchinson, you may know the case of Maikel Nabil, a 26-year-old blogger in Egypt. He is one of the early leaders of the Tahrir revolution and one of the early advocates for the Egyptian “Arab Spring”, who initially coined the phrase we hear now revisited with the demonstrations, that the army and the people are “of one hand”. At the time, he felt that the army and the people were working together and helped to bring common demonstrations between Christians and Muslims in Egypt. He himself is a Christian Copt.

But last March, when he felt the army was turning against the people, he made a statement that the army and the people were no longer of one hand. For that, he was charged with insulting the Egyptian military, brought before an Egyptian military tribunal, convicted, and sentenced to three years in prison.

That process, like all processes before the Egyptian military tribunals, was devoid of any legality. There was no presumption of innocence. Ninety-three percent of those who have been brought before that tribunal have been convicted, with no right of appeal, no right to independent counsel, etc. As I am speaking with you today, Mr. Nabil is in the 91st day of a hunger strike, his life hanging by a thread.

My questions to you are the following. Are you or your organization aware of this case, and if so, have you taken it up? If you have taken it up, do you believe that his being a Christian Copt has had any relationship to the charges and imprisonment?

Finally, are you aware of other Christian Copts who have been brought before the Egyptian military tribunal—which, as I say, is a process devoid of any legality—and if so, has their being a Christian Copt been related to their being brought before the tribunals?

[Don Hutchinson]

Mr. Chair, those are very good questions. It's a strong series of questions.

I'm familiar with Mr. Nabil's situation. There are members of the Religious Liberty Partnership who are engaging on his behalf. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is not directly engaging, and I'm not clear as to whether members of the EFC religious liberty commission are directly engaging or whether it's through the partnership network. But there is engagement on the issue.

I'm being asked to speculate whether Mr. Nabil's being a Coptic Christian contributed to his arrest and imprisonment. Certainly we would like to see him free. Certainly on a freedom of expression basis we would see that he doesn't belong in prison. However, it's difficult to assess the difference between somebody being falsely convicted because they've criticized the military in a military regime and being falsely convicted because they've criticized the military and they're also a Coptic Christian.

I can't put my headspace inside the headspace of the military tribunal to assess whether or not they've made that type of an assessment.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Are you aware of any other Christian Copts who...? So far, close to 12,000 in the post-Mubarak era have been brought before the military tribunal, of whom 93% have been found guilty, reversing any notion of presumption of innocence. I'm just wondering whether there are Christian Copts amongst them, to you knowledge. If so, is there a connection to the fact that they are Christian Copts?

From my own appreciation of Maikel Nabil's case, I don't believe that his being a Christian Copt related to his imprisonment. That's why I am asking you if there is any other suggestion, by reason of the number or nature of Christian Copts being brought before the tribunal and being charged and imprisoned.

[Don Hutchinson]

I'm aware that other Christians have been detained and imprisoned. I'm not certain whether they've appeared before the particular tribunal that deals with charges of engaging in operations against the current military rulership of Egypt.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Professor.

We'll go now to Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hutchinson, for being here and for the good work that the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada does.

Please relay to Mr. Stiller when you communicate with him that he will certainly be remembered in the prayers of those who are faithful to praying here and hope that he be kept safe and not find himself in a situation that can easily explode in Egypt.

One of the things we should establish here is that although murder and mass murder were not common in Egypt, the persecution of Christians was common before this uprising. They are identified differently in the country, and there are limitations put upon them as far as employment and property, etc. Is that correct?

[Don Hutchinson]

It is a correct assumption that Christians are subject to different treatment, which we would describe as persecution.

I referenced earlier that this report will be sent electronically to the clerk so it can shared with the committee once it is translated. If it had been translated I would have brought copies.

I certainly appreciate the expression of concern for Dr. Stiller. He surprised me with the video he posted yesterday. Because of our communications until that time, I would not have mentioned his name here.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

For those of us who know Mr. Stiller, he's usually full of surprises.

How many churches in the last year have been destroyed in Egypt? Do you have a count on that?

[Don Hutchinson]

The three churches that have been completely destroyed since the uprising in January commenced are the ones I've mentioned: the two in Cairo, and the St. George church in Merinab in Aswan province.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Is damage to houses of worship uncommon in Egypt?

[Don Hutchinson]

Damage to houses of worship has taken place in the past in more limited numbers than in this past year. There has been a general sense of respect for the places of worship among the different religious communities.

One of the great concerns is the effort on the part of extremists to make a political statement. That political statement is being made through attacks on a minority religious community as a display of strength.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

The statement that you're talking about, was that the statement recorded in the media that the Muslim Brotherhood has said that no churches should be built or rebuilt?

[Don Hutchinson]

No. I was referencing one of the statements I had read today that we'd gathered in the last six days from someone on the ground in Egypt.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Okay. I saw the media reports, and I was just wondering if you had some way of confirming that.

Reverend El Shafie was here, and he made a statement that he regarded the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Would you characterize them as that?

[Don Hutchinson]

I'll premise this by stating that one of the principal differences between Reverend El Shafie and me is that I'm a lawyer, so my understanding of the definition of a terrorist organization might be different from his.

To my knowledge, the Muslim Brotherhood has never been categorized as a terrorist group by a western nation, and would therefore land outside of that definition. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, is a political expression that is, by their own admission, tied to a more extreme expression of Islam than the understood majority of the population of Egypt.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Sweet.

Ms. Péclet, you have the floor.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to understand certain things clearly. I read certain newspaper articles. For instance, I read an article about a girl who was beaten in the street by a Christian woman. In addition, other persons report that the army, the police and the Ministry of the Interior are sending people out into the streets to sow panic whenever they want to.

Can you tell me precisely whether the government itself is responsible for these acts, ultimately? Is the government held responsible for these things, or are we simply witnessing a rivalry between the religious groups in the country, such as we saw in Lebanon? Are the Christians and Muslims really at odds?

Can you tell me who is behind these acts, and how we can tell the difference? Or is it really the government, ultimately, that is responsible for these acts because of its more radical position?