Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 15th, 2011

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

The amendment is acceptable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay.

Does this mean we have a consensus on this, then?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

Good. That's adopted.

We now go to Professor Cotler, who is the next questioner.

I remind the members and the witnesses that they are four-minute rounds.

Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Sweet effectively asked the question that I asked. I may try to just recast it.

I want to thank Mr. Nabil Malek for being here. I've known him and worked with him for a long time. Also, I want to thank Mr. Ashraf Ramelah, with whom I appeared on a panel last week on minorities in the Middle East.

As I was listening to both of your witnesses' testimonies, I was thinking back to the initial hope of the Tahrir revolution, to the initial promise of the Egyptian spring. At the time, if we remember, Christians and Muslims stood together in common cause, where the army was looked to as the protector of the people, where this time the pain and plight of the Coptic Christians, as dramatized by the most recent events of October 9, appeared as a betrayal of the promise of the Egyptian spring. The army has emerged not so much as the protector of the Copts, but as Ayman Nour, an Egyptian political leader, recently put it, there's no longer a partnership between them now that the blood flows between them.

My first question: Has the Christian Coptic community lost trust in the army, lost faith in the Tahrir revolution?

Secondly, should there be an independent investigation by the UN Human Rights Council, for example, of the events of October 9--indeed, of the plight of the Coptic community? Would you recommend that Canada call upon the UN Human Rights Council for that purpose?

So those are my two questions.

[Dr. Ashraf Ramelah]

I believe that the Copts certainly lost a lot of faith in the army, especially after what occurred on October 9. An international investigation needs to be done, not only an investigation in the United Nations, but I urge the Canadian government to make a motion to bring Mr. Tantawi to the International Criminal Court. No one could start whatever happened without an order from the high rank of the Egyptian army.

[Nabil Malek]

I second the proposition of my colleague. As a matter of fact, this is the request of the young people of Maspero, the Copts, because it was horrendous aggression. For your information, it was not the first time that personnel from the army attacked Copts. They did it in Imbaba a couple of months ago. They attacked people and they killed a number of Copts because they were protesting the demolition, the setting on fire, of a church in Giza, south of Cairo. There have been a number of attacks by the army on historic monasteries in the western desert, and all are documented.

We cannot stop the carnage against the Copts in Egypt unless there is a deterrent against the army, which is ruling now. When I say the army, I mean the council under the presidency of Tantawi. He knew about these things, but never investigated. As a matter of fact, he is not the one to investigate because he's accused by the church--and we have the documents--and up to now, more than six weeks, there is no word on who attacked the Copts of Maspero, though we have the videos of armoured vehicles flattening the Copts on the streets of Maspero. Who did that? We don't need proof; it is there. We can get all the documents from Egypt from lawmakers, the Copts, who have all the proof. We have all the evidence to bring the military council to international justice.

We ask the Canadian and western governments to uphold the universal ideas that we respect and live by here. We cannot accept less from Canada, our adopted country. History will say what we are and are not going to do here. It is time; otherwise we might see a genocide. A genocide is in the making, but in a different way. There are crimes against humanity, and I appeal to Canadians and to Mr. Cotler, the person who understands the law among you, and you also know that. So please do something before it is too late.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Ms. Grewal, please, you're next.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for your time and your presentations.

Could you please tell us how have the investigations into the attacks been handled? Also, as of now, what is the status of the 28 individuals who were arrested due to the clashes?

What are some of the accusations that the Egyptian state television station has made in an attempt to support their claims that the Copts had violently attacked the army and public property? How has the Egyptian community in general reacted to the accusations?

In the end, what can Canada and the international community do regarding this?

[Nabil Malek]

Thank you for the question. I will try to answer parts of this question, because it's a very large one.

If you looked at the press conference of the military council about three days after the massacre, they said they didn't know who the culprits were. The military council itself claimed they didn't know who fired on the Copts.

Let me tell you, I was in Egypt in May, and I am not living here mentally. I was prosecuted because I was defending the Copts and the national unity in 1977, before my immigration. I understand the regime very well, and let me tell you openly and frankly, this is a racist regime.

I accused this regime in my prosecution before the judges in Egypt that it is a racist regime, and we were going to take it to account, whether Canada does something or not. But it is an obligation on Canada to do something, because if they don't, Canada will be overwhelmed, swamped by immigration from Egypt. There will be an influx of immigration that will happen, suffering by the Copts.

Even if the election does something fancy, it will not...unless we have drastic political change in that regime and empowerment of the Copts inside Egypt to work with the secularists to support a secularist state down the road.

It is a long way off, but the Copts are very optimistic; they are not pessimistic. I sent a video, and the Copts are parading on the streets and ready to shed their blood in thousands to get their rights. And they're not going back. Their fear is finished. The blood they saw on the streets.... I cannot control myself because of the scenes we have seen. Please go to the YouTube on the Internet to see these shocking scenes.

The army can say anything and they call it denial—the policy of denial. I have tons of information here by scholars from Britain that I will leave with the committee.

We have a big problem, not only for Copts but for the western democracies. Please do something. Otherwise the whole Middle East.... Egypt is collapsing. It is not just an attack here or there; it is more than that.

The Maspero massacre is part of a bigger image. Again, it is not the Copts alone, it is the revolution, and to halt the revolution the military council had to hit the Coptic minority hard to scare the majority. It is a very, very complicated issue.

Please, it is not just the Copts; it is the whole Egyptian history coming down now. Of course the Copts are paying a higher price because they are in the crossfire between Islamists and the interests of the regime. The regime is using Islam not for the love of Islam; everywhere in the Middle East they are using religion for legitimacy. But it doesn't work this way.

You can hear from the high military council that there are articles everywhere. The Egyptians lost confidence in the military council months ago, even before the massacre, because it failed in many ways. The council has its own interest. It's blinded by its own interest. The council is exactly like what happened to Mubarak. They were blinded by their own interest, and that's why they got in trouble. They deceived the most, and it seems like it's going to happen again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

I'm afraid that uses up the time available for that question.

That actually concludes our questions today. Before I adjourn the committee, I'm going to draw the members' attention to the fact that we have distributed a schedule. I don't propose to discuss it here, given time constraints, but it's in your hands now.

With regard to the two witnesses, we thank you.

Mr. Malek, we would be very grateful if you could leave the materials you referred to. We'll ensure that all members get the studies you referred to, if you give them to the clerk.

[Nabil Malek]

I would be more than glad to leave all of what I have. I sent a very informative video to the honourable clerk of the committee and a panel of the Hudson Institute. It's a very new panel of experts on the situation in Egypt, and the Copts in particular.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

[Nabil Malek]

I can give you all my time and my support. Whatever you need from me, I will do, not for the love of the Copts, but for the love of Canada, which has opened up its border to me, and to my family and parents—and we have a huge family. I still care about Egypt as a Canadian. I have a responsibility to protect Canada before things get out of hand.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Thank you as well to our other witness, Dr. Ramelah, who I incorrectly identified as Mr. Ramelah, but who is actually Dr. Ramelah. We're very grateful to you for being here.

We're very grateful to you, Mr. Malek.

The meeting is now adjourned.