Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2011

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

What's changed right now? Iraq lived in a peaceful atmosphere, more or less, during Saddam Hussein. After Saddam Hussein was taken out after the American invasion, the majority of the Shi’as started to take over the Iraqi government, because they are the majority. They founded an organization called Jaysh Al-Mahdi, the Mahdi army. They started to take over the government. Now they try to upgrade them to be part of the Iraqi regime. What has happened is that the Sunnis and the Shi’as, the two main groups in Iraq, had militias and they started to attack the Christians from both sides, and the Iraqi government did not stop them. They didn't do anything to stop them.

I have a case in the year 2006 of a gentleman by the name of Ahtra Kyriakos, who was kidnapped, shot, and tortured by the Jaysh Al-Mahdi. Nobody was arrested; there was no justice. Most of the attacks on the Christian community or the Bahá’ís or the Sabians and Mandaeans go unpunished. The Christian community and the other minorities don't carry weapons. They don't have militias, so they have no way to protect themselves, their teachings, and their religion.

So what we see right now is the militias attacking the Christian community, trying to get rid of them from Iraq. And with all due respect, if I may say--Irwin, I'm sure that you are with me--this has happened before to the Jewish Iraqi community. So when the people say maybe this will never happen to the Christians, this has happened before to the Jewish community in Iraq. They were forced to leave Iraq, especially in Farhud—if you remember the massacre of Farhud, where 182 Jewish Iraqis were killed. We have one of the victims, actually, one of the survivors here. One of the survivors of this massacre is here. So this has happened before and it's happening again to the Christians.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you. That ends that round.

I actually misspoke earlier when I said it was six minutes each. Math will dictate that with six people here and 30 minutes, we actually have five minutes each. I do apologize for that. Of course on top of that, we want to have a closing statement.

Mr. Marston, please.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Does that mean Mr. Sweet owes us 30 seconds?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We may extract it from our other Conservative MP at a later time in this proceeding.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Reverend El Shafie, it's nice to see you again.

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

A pleasure, sir.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It was a pleasure speaking to your conference recently on rebuilding Iraq.

We watch our television news every night. We're seeing the people of Egypt coming back to try to guarantee what they thought they had in the spring. Because they took the figurehead or the so-called leader Mubarak out and removed him does not mean they took the system out. It has been there for so long. Your story is very concerning.

One of the things I'm very cautious of is use of the word “genocide”, because as we all know that means to wipe out an entire population. Certainly the massacre you described in the church—and when I visited you, you gave me a piece of the church where the 54 people were slaughtered--there's no other word for it. Those pictures from that church, are they from—

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

They were from the Maspero attack, from the Egyptian attack.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I suspect that either case would have been very similar in the outcome, because it is so horrific.

One of the questions I have is on the Muslim Brotherhood. You called them a terrorist group. Where did they receive that designation? Is there actually a country that has declared them a terrorist group, or is it just based on their action as you perceive it?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Both. They are a terrorist group in most of the Middle East. In most of the Arab countries they call them that. However, the fact that Egypt calls them a terrorist group doesn't mean anything to me, because they would call us a terrorist group as well, an organization like One Free World International.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Well, I was thinking in terms of Canada or the United States or Great Britain.

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

No. In the United States and Great Britain.... Most of the free world calls them that. However, this is not my measurement. My measurement is their action with regard--

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

No, I understand your position, and anybody handling the pictures of what has occurred would feel the same way. I was just looking to see if internationally the community had responded by designating that group. The description you've given, when you say it was escalated.... The first attack was by individuals, and then it became the system or the military or the police in the attack.

Is there any evidence at all of anybody being arrested, charged, or put before a court for any of the crimes in those two situations?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Not as far as I'm aware. And actually, in the Maspero massacre a lot of the Christians were arrested, and some of them are still in prison right now. So the victims themselves were arrested.

In the Church of Our Lady of Salvation, the five terrorists who entered the church blew themselves up in the end, so there was nobody to arrest; they died in the attack as well.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Now, to allow us to keep this straight--we do have a viewing audience--that particular event took place in Iraq.

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

That's correct.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I just wanted to clarify for the record, because we're going back and forth between Iraq and Egypt, and the situations are terribly similar.

Going back to Egypt for a moment, because that's your homeland originally, to what extent is the discrimination based on religion? How pervasive is that? You said that right now it seems that the Coptic Christians are in the sights, so to speak, and you referred to the Jewish situation before. So any Christian in that country would not feel safe and would be definitely discriminated against?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Definitely the majority will not feel safe, and will feel that there is discrimination around them. Now, there are degrees of persecution and discrimination. It could be somebody insulting you in the street just because you have a cross, or it could be getting fired from your work, or it could be a physical or emotional attack, or it could even be to the degree of imprisonment.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

When you describe all of those, that citizen-to-citizen type of thing, or employer to employee.... You've talked about the state, and the state via the military in that one instance attacked people directly.

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

On October 9, yes.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

So within the administration of the state, if you went to get a passport or anything, there's total built-in discrimination there as well, in Egypt?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Yes. In many of the areas, the answer is yes.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

For years Egypt had been held up as the ideal. It's far from the ideal as I hear it.

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

It's very far from the ideal.

I just want to bring one point to your attention with regard to the people who were arrested and the justice system. After the massacre of Maspero, there was a lot of international pressure on the army to start an international investigation. What the army did is they appointed their own counsel to start the investigation. So the army is investigating itself.

You tell me, do you think that will be a fair investigation?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

That's what we hear in a lot of situations. Sri Lanka is one that comes to mind.