Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm pleased that reference was made to what occurred in Iraq in 1941, the Farhud massacre. It is now the 70th anniversary of it, and it has gone largely unacknowledged, so I'm pleased that reference was made to it.
The question I want to put has to do with a particular individual who emerged as a kind of symbol of the Egyptian Arab Spring. I'm referring to Michael Nabil, a 26-year-old blogger who spoke so hopefully about the Egyptian Arab Spring in Tahrir Square, in his statement in which he mentions that the army and the people are “of one hand”; in other words, the army and the people are working together. He then witnessed the suppression by the army of civilians and protesters and the like and then said that the army and the people are no longer of one hand.
For that he was illegally tried, convicted, and sentenced to a three-year imprisonment. As we are meeting here today, he is in the 91st day of a hunger strike. His life is hanging by a thread.
Do you regard his case as a symbol of the failure of the Egyptian Arab Spring? Also, do you believe that the fact that he happens to be a Christian Copt who supported the normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt contributed in any way to his conviction and imprisonment, in this situation in which he finds himself today?