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

[Don Hutchinson]

That's another very good question.

What's taking place on the streets in Egypt is coming to us through a variety of news sources and reports, including social media. Some violence by larger groups is being attributed to predominantly Muslim extremist groups, and some to the military. Reports of that violence have been documented largely through video, in addition to the spoken word, or through other photographs that provide visual identifiers of those who are engaging in the harmful actions.

The word we have, as I shared earlier, seems to indicate that it's more a display of power taking place now between Muslim extremists and the military, which currently controls the government as an election period approaches. I would note that there were historic differences between faith communities, but very rarely had they escalated to the level of frequency or volume of violence that's taking place now.

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

I have a brief question.

Since you are a lawyer I would really like to speak to you about... We hear about violence in the streets. Is there also discrimination against the Christians in legislation as such? For instance, regarding family law, I read that when a Christian marries a Muslim, the act does not apply to both in the same way. Do they have the same rights? Are they subject to discrimination, for instance, in the public service? Since their birth certificate shows whether they are Christian or Muslim, is there discrimination when someone is applying for a job, for instance, or attempting to access certain services?

And with regard to how the law is applied in the courts, we also hear that certain groups have made representations to the government, complaining that these actions are never punished. Do Christians turn to the courts or not, knowing that the courts apply legislation that makes them unequal to Muslims?

I am simply trying to understand the scope of the marginalization of the Christian groups—aside from the violence they are subjected to—in general, in society.

[Don Hutchinson]

There is an inequality constitutionally and legally for Christians in Egypt. The constitution contains an overriding provision in regard to sharia law.

Certainly there is evidence that where there is an accepted conversion to Christianity, which is rare, we do engage in trying to secure the safety of those who convert to Christianity of their own free will.

But where there is a successful conversion and a marriage to a Christian woman takes place subsequently, then it's recorded as a Muslim marriage and all children of the marriage are considered to be Muslim as well. There are a number of inequalities in the law in that regard.

As to the violence that's taking place and who is standing where on those issues, we remain in the position of a nation that is experiencing a measure of instability under military control, heading into an election where even the seats available are undetermined and uncertain. So it really is a period of substantial instability where the international community has an opportunity to engage in peaceful relationships and peaceful offers to assist in oversight, particularly in this nation that is so key to the politics of the Middle East. We should be giving serious consideration to that.

For more detail, I would hope that the report, when it's translated, will be of assistance to you, because some of those issues are addressed there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

We're basically out of time here. We have to do a very small amount of organizational work.

That said, I am going to ask for the indulgence of the committee and ask just one question of a more global nature.

Just returning to the global number of 250 million Christians persecuted worldwide, I suppose to some degree that's simply an artifact of the fact that there are more Christians in the world than members of any other faith. But it does nonetheless seem awfully high. Give or take 100 million, are there about 2 billion Christians in the world, something like that?

[Don Hutchinson]

The estimate is about 2.2 billion Christians in the world today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay. So that means roughly 10% of the population of Christians worldwide face persecution.

I actually don't know the answer to this question, but you have some expertise or at least can point us in the right direction. Does that seem...? If we were to look at other groups, other than groups that are very small and nationally concentrated, like the Baha’is, is that substantially higher or is that typical for the percentage of various religious groups facing persecution overall?

[Don Hutchinson]

Mr. Chair, it is inordinately high, which is why the world watch list is cut off at the top 60 most offensive nations in that regard. When one considers that 60 countries is somewhere between 15% and 18% of the number of nations on the planet, it's a substantial number of nations. In those nations, the ideologically driven persecution is huge, and they are not the only nations.

The list could go on, and go much longer. When you look at the top 60, if you compare lists from previous years, some countries drop off the list and some countries come on the list. Countries move around on the list as they engage in more egregious efforts.

Certainly what took place with the October 9 massacre at Maspero generated concerns about a potential genocide. But there hasn't been any action by the military since then, and the Christians have been very careful not to gather peacefully in a public location like that, so I wouldn't throw that word around at this point in time. It doesn't make sense to me to say that we should fear genocide in Egypt. What we do need to fear is an increase in the degree of persecution under the potential of a government that has made statements to the effect that they intend to invoke a much stronger form of Islamic sharia law.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, committee members, for indulging me in that last question.

I just have one item of committee business to deal with. We had intended to do committee business, which would involve rounding up all the non-committee members and hustling them to the exits so that we could go in camera, but it looks like there's about an 80% chance that our witness for Tuesday will be unavailable.

I wonder if I could simply ask the committee if we could delay our committee business until then. We have enough to keep us busy for an hour, because we have to start projecting into the new year and lining up witnesses for then.

Would that be agreeable to members?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you to our witness. We really appreciate, Mr. Hutchinson, your coming in. It was very informative indeed.

The meeting is adjourned.