Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Sept. 30th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Order, please. I would like to have everyone's attention.

Today is September 30, 2014, and I want to welcome you to the 35th meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Pursuant to our standing orders we are looking today at the persecution of religious minorities in Iraq. We have with us Reverend Majed El Shafie who is the founder and president of One Free World International. Reverend El Shafie has come to this committee before on a variety of issues relating to religious liberty in different parts of what we could probably describe as the Islamic world. Today he will be testifying on something that of course is very much top of mind to many people and that is the situation in Iraq, based I believe on some personal experience visiting with some MPs last summer.

Reverend El Shafie, I invite you to begin your remarks. When they're over we'll go to our normal questions. The timing of each question will depend on how much time is available at the end of your introductory remarks.

Thank you very much.

[The Reverend Majed El Shafie, Founder and President, One Free World International]

Mr. Chair, and honourable members of Parliament, I thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about the situation in Iraq, especially in Kurdistan, and how Iraqis has been affected recently by the attacks from ISIS.

My name is Reverend Majed El Shafie. I am the founder and president of One Free World International for human rights. I spent time in an Egyptian prison for fighting for human rights. I was in an Egyptian prison, and I was tortured for my Christian beliefs.

The fact that I'm here, and the fact that I'm still alive, is not less than a miracle. It is extremely important to start this introduction for one simple reason. I'm not here just as a man wearing a suit sitting behind his desk. I used to be one of the minorities who were in prison, who were tortured, and who were almost killed for their beliefs.

One Free World International is a human rights organization based in Toronto. We now have branches in 20 countries. Our main goal is to fight for the persecuted believers whoever they are. If they are Hindu, or Sikh, or Christians, or Muslims, or whatever their religion or whatever their background, we're fighting for the minorities who are facing persecution for their religious beliefs around the world.

When it comes to Iraq, One Free World International led two delegations to Iraq. One was in September 2011, with member of Parliament John Weston and Senator Don Meredith. They came with us in their capacity as observers. We were able to meet with different members of the Iraqi government. We were able to meet with victims. We were able to see some of the churches and worship places that were attacked such as Our Lady of Salvation.

Recently One Free World International led another delegation to Iraq, August 30 to September 1 of this year. Three members of Parliament came with me again in their capacity as observers. One of them was my good friend and a dear friend of mine who I dare to call a friend and a champion of human rights, Mr. Brad Butt—he is here with us—and Mr. Russ Hiebert and Mr. Leon Benoit. We were able to go to Erbil in Kurdistan and see the situation on the ground in Iraq, especially in the northern side in Erbil in Kurdistan and Dohuk, the border city of Mosul. We visited three refugee camps. One of the refugee camps was a Christian refugee camp, the second refugee camp was a Yazidi refugee camp, and the third one was mix of Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities.

In terms of the situation on the ground in Kurdistan, you have to understand that as we are talking right now there are more than 1.6 million refugees in the area of Kurdistan, all of them running away from the torture and the attacks that took place when ISIS attacked the region. There were more than 500 children under the age of three in one of the refugee camps we visited.

When we met with the refugees face to face the stories we witnessed.... One little girl, Rahama, was eight years old and had lost her mom and dad when they died in an explosion in Mosul. Another testimony that really touched my heart was from the Yazidi community. One of the victims ran away to the Sinjar mountain. When ISIS attacked, many of the Yazidi community escaped immediately to the Sinjar mountain. It is estimated that over 50,000 from the Yazidi community escaped to Sinjar mountain.

They tell you that on the first night, because of the lack of food and water between 45 to 60 Yazidi children....

One of the mothers almost lost her child. In order to maintain the life of her child, she cut her finger to feed her child her own blood. We were able to meet with this woman, and it broke our hearts. This is the situation on the ground.

We witnessed Christians being crucified by ISIS. We witnessed young kids being attacked, being raped. We witnessed a group of females who were kidnapped and sold to the ISIS fighters for $20 apiece. They sold them like slaves, for their own fighters, for their own pleasure.

The situation on the ground, the persecution that's facing the Christian minority in Iraq today at the hands of ISIS, is not brand new. Christians have been persecuted in Iraq for the last 10 years and longer—since the American invasion. The problem with the Christians is that they get in the crossfire between the extreme Sunnis and the extreme Shiites. The persecution of Christians is not something new. Even the persecution of the Yazidis is not something new. Now we are speaking more about it because now ISIS has attacked, and you can see this persecution increase in a major way. But for the last 10 years our organization and the Iraqi community have been crying out about the persecution taking place against their people, and the world remained silent about it. That's the truth.

We visited the medical centre as well. We sat down with some of the doctors who deal with the situation. We discovered that one of their main needs is medication; they don't have enough. All said and done, and all that we witnessed....

I went as well to the front lines. I didn't take the honourable member of Parliament with me, simply because it would have been unsecure. We went to the front lines and I met with the Peshmerga, who are the Kurdish troops on the front line. One of the soldiers was 65 years old. When I asked him what he was doing there at 65 years old, he said, “I have to defend my country. We've been persecuted as Kurdish for many, many years, and I have to stay here to protect my country.” He's 65 years old, fighting in the front lines.

The situation in Iraq right now has all the signs of the beginning of a genocide. Without our intervention we are risking emptying the region, especially Iraq, of the Christian minorities, the Yazidi minorities, and the other minorities such as the Mandaeans, and so forth. This has happened before in Iraq. This is not the first time. Some of you say, well, it has never happened that you could empty the place of all the minorities, but that's not correct. In 1941 in Iraq there was a massacre, again of the Jewish people, called the Farhud. Between 200 and 700 Jewish people were killed that day, and more than 2,000 were injured in the massacre. From 1948 to 1951, it was the exodus of the Jewish people out of Iraq, and now Iraq, to the best of my knowledge, does not even have one Jewish person.

One of the victims of the Farhud massacre is sitting behind me, Ms. Noga Abarbanel.

I'll go to my recommendations. Our Canadian government—and I am very thankful to our Canadian government—has presented a total of $28 million in aid to Iraq since the beginning of 2014.

On August 10, $5 million in humanitarian aid was followed by $15 million of new military aid: $10 million for non-lethal military equipment to secure forces combatting ISIS and $5 million to support regional efforts to limit the movement of the foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria. There was $7 million of new humanitarian aid: $5 million for emergency shelters and relief equipment, and $2 million for urgent care services in the region.

Our number one recommendation with regard to aid is accountability. We are giving aid to countries where the governments are not accountable. We cannot ensure that the aid is ending up in the hands of the people who need it.

The truth and the reality is this. When I took the rocky first trip, I had with me Mr. John Weston and Senator Don Meredith. They are witnesses to what I am saying. We met with the vice-president of Iraq, the vice-prime minister of Iraq, the foreign affairs minister, and the human rights minister. Canada at this point had given more than $300 million in aid to the Iraqi central government. When we asked where the $300 million went, the response from the Iraqi government was “we don't know”. They don't know where our money went. They don't know where our tax money went.

As far as giving this aid to Kurdistan or Iraq is concerned, we have to have accountability. We have to know where this money went and we have to ensure that the aid is actually ending up in the hands of the people who really need it.

The second thing with regard to aid is that we have to have a condition. “We will continue to support you. We will continue aiding you if you protect human rights in your country, if you protect women's rights, if you improve your human rights situation.” We cannot just give aid without a condition.

All I am saying is if we are giving aid, let's ensure that this aid not only will be used for the people who need aid, but that it will ensure that the Kurdish government or the Iraqi central government will be able to protect women's rights, human rights, and the freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is the foundation of democracy. Without freedom of religion, there would be no democracy, because if you took from the men and women what they believe, you would take from them everything else.

We have to focus aid on medicine and shelter. The winter is coming in four weeks. The people are living in tents. They need shelter and they need it now or a lot of them will die in the cold. This is four weeks away, it's not that far away.

With regard to our recommendation about air strikes and Canadian military involvement, air strikes are very important to protect the minority and to push ISIS back and to stop their advances. However, air strikes will not win you the war. The minute that we start the air strikes, and we really are, a surprise element already disappears. I promise you that ISIS will start to blend in with the civilians, with the locals, so it will be almost impossible to hunt them down with air strikes without hurting the civilian population. As much as air strikes are important, they will not have a resolution with regard to ISIS.

How can we defeat ISIS, especially in Iraq? There are two things.

Number one, we have to cut the lifeline of ISIS financially. ISIS is supported by governments like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Turkey. We have to punish the governments for supporting ISIS with supplies or finance. On top of this, they are also buying oil from ISIS. The revenue of black oil is almost $2 million to $3 million a day. All of this has to be cut. I know the Americans started to strike the oil fields in Syria and Iraq just to stop this part.

It is very important that we look at the governments that support ISIS. You have to ask yourselves the question: why were two American hostages and one British hostage beheaded while 49 Turkish hostages were released the next day? What is the deal between Turkey and ISIS that makes Turkey secure? They're releasing their hostages, but the Americans and the British couldn't. We have to punish the government that cooperates and coordinates with ISIS. This is number one of how to defeat ISIS.

Number two is the reconciliation within the Iraqi government. I need to tell you something very important. I don't know if you know this from the news or not, but here is the truth. When ISIS entered Iraq, it entered Iraq with forces of 1,500 to 1,800 soldiers. It's impossible, with 1,500 to 1,800 soldiers, to take 40% of the country in a few days, including the second largest city in Iraq, Mosul. It's impossible. ISIS couldn't do this without the support of the Arab Sunni tribes. After years and years of persecution from the Shia Maliki government, the Sunnis said enough is enough, they would cooperate even with the devil. This doesn't mean that the Sunnis are bad. It simply means that they were forced to cooperate with ISIS. They were tired of the abuses and the persecution they were facing from the Shia government, the Maliki government, and not all from the Shias, but the Shia Maliki government.

To start reconciliation is how you defeat ISIS in Iraq. You have to start reconciliation within the Iraqi government where you can include all the minorities—Sunnis, Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, Kaka'is, whoever they are—and you have to give them the right of self-government, if it comes to that, to protect them.

Once the situation is settled, you have to have international peacekeeping troops to protect the minorities and in order for them to feel secure in returning to their homes.

Mr. Chair, I've finished my testimony. Would you allow me to have the last two minutes after the questions for my closing remarks, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We'll certainly try to do that.

On the suspicion that we may run a little over time, I'm going to ask for the indulgence of the committee at seeing the clock generously towards the end of the meeting. We might perhaps go a little beyond 2 p.m. It will be all dependent on everybody being efficient in their questioning, and the answers as well, so that we have the time for that.

Let's keep our remarks short. We have enough time for six-minute question-and-answer rounds for each of our questioners.

Hopefully that will leave us with enough time for that two minutes at the end, Reverend El Shafie.

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We begin with Mr. Sweet.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I myself want to make a brief statement first. As far as the notion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, I consider those titles unacceptable and repugnant, as well as the whole notion that this terrorist group is an Islamic state. I want to have that on record, number one.

Number two, I know Reverend El Shafie did not intend this because he was testifying at large volume, but I want to make sure there's no ambiguity with respect to the government's position or my position. No amount of persecution justifies the kind of terrorism we're seeing. In fact, it's interesting that Reverend El Shafie mentions the years and years of persecution of minorities and Christians in Iraq. Of course, no such action at all has ever been taken. There's no justification whatsoever for taking innocent people and beheading them or crucifying them, or some of the things we've seen that are just humanly barbaric and to a magnitude that we haven't seen.

Reverend, thank you, first off, for the courage to go underground and bring back some information that is not only very relevant from the ground but very current.

I want to ask you about the marking of the doors of Christians particularly.

But first I want to ask you what the situation is for Muslims who are peace-loving and moderate in Iraq. Are they suffering at the hands of the extremist elements in Iraq as well?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

The last refugee camp that we went to was a mixed refugee camp, which means that we met as well with some of the Muslim families who had been affected. I can tell you that, yes, the moderate Muslims who are peace-loving Muslims are affected as well because I believe that ISIS doesn't know religion. That's truly my belief. The fact that ISIS now is fighting with the Kurdish government, or Kurdistan, of which the majority are Sunni Muslims—they're the same, they're not Shias—shows you that they don't care of what belief you are. However, I will point out strongly that the biggest dilemma facing Islam today, as a faith and as a belief, is not the rising of the extremists but the silence of the moderate Muslims. I will point out that the moderate Muslims today should play a bigger role in fighting these extremists and in showing the world if this is true Islam or not true Islam. Sadly, what I am seeing is the moderate Muslims in Canada, and elsewhere, in Iraq and in the United States, are very silent. I believe this is a very weak point on their side.

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

Reverend, the marking of the doors of Christians particularly is very troubling. Did you meet any of those people whose doors had been marked and were fleeing from.... I'm not going to finish your answer, but from what would they be fleeing if their doors were marked with a Christian symbol in Arabic by these terrorists?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Let me just explain quickly. Doors are marked by the letter nun in Arabic. The letter nun stands for Nasrani, which is “Christian”, so it's the first letter of “Christian”. Of course, we met some of these people, especially in the first refugee camp in Erbil, when we went to the Catholic church there. It brought back memories to us of the Holocaust when they used to mark Jewish people with a Star of David. It is the same concept basically. They mark your door and they give you three options. Once this mark is on your door, you have three options: get killed, pay extra tax, what is knows as jizya, or you convert to Islam. This is the meaning of the mark on the door.

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

You mentioned being in Kurdistan. How many of the refugee camps are actually in Kurdistan, and are the Kurdish forces protecting those? Are they managing and protecting those camps?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

To the best of my knowledge, I don't know how exactly many refugee camps there are there. Not all of them are refugee camps. Some of them will be empty buildings that are not built yet. Some will be in a church. Some will be even in some homes or gardens or in the street. There is no way to pinpoint exactly how many refugee camps are there.

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

These are not sophisticated United Nations refugee camps. These are makeshift groupings of people trying to huddle together to protect themselves.

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Absolutely, and we went to some of the refugee camps that were made by the UNHCR. We went to both of them, but I can tell you that for the majority, wherever there is an empty space, they will just put people there and they will keep them there. At least they have a place to sleep.

I'm sorry, what was the second part of the question?

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

It was mostly about Kurdistan—

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Marston, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome again, Reverend. You've been here a number of times as a witness on many fronts around the world to which you have travelled in the name of humanitarian aid. It has been really interesting for me because you are validating today some of the information that has come to the official opposition about the situation over there. Following the United States, leaving the country, Prime Minister al-Maliki turned on the people who used to support Saddam, in my understanding, and basically as well the army wasn't being paid properly, and, as you indicated, when 1,800 to 2,000 crossed the border to invade and something like five regiments laid down their arms—

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

That's correct.

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

Those five regiments could have put an end to it right there—

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Absolutely, that's correct.

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

—if it hadn't been, in my belief, the political distortion that happened in the interim between that time and when the Americans first left.

They've replaced that Prime Minister now, and hopefully things will improve on that front.

You talked about aid and the need for immediate aid. Of course this group will be pleased to hear the word “accountability” in there because that's one of the things we'd be very concerned with, how the dollars would be spent that will go over there. In a time of crisis, in any nation, they could be diverted into military even if we want them to go to humanitarian, so we have to find a way to do that.

Canada will have a limited amount of resources to put into this, whether it be military or whether it be humanitarian aid. From your perspective would you say that humanitarian aid is more important than military aid at this juncture?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

I would say that both of them will complete each other, just to be honest and to be clear, without taking any position of any political party.

But the truth and the reality are that if there is no security on the ground, the humanitarian aid will not do anything. If the refugees are not secure, if their borders are not secure, if Kurdistan is not secure as a country and as a nation, it will not be able to aid 1.6 million refugees and displaced persons.

What I am really saying is that you cannot take both of them and divide them into two pieces. Both security and humanitarian aid have to work together and complete each other.

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

We have a situation where we now have Britain, the United States, and France involved. From my perspective, that's a pretty heavy-duty military action under way already. The forces of those countries combined certainly would offset anything that Canada would even begin to put in there.

Would it not be better for us to take the humanitarian front, allowing the other nations to put the money and effort into the military side while we put the majority if not all of ours into humanitarian aid?

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

I believe that if we do it in a balanced way, we can.... The Peshmerga definitely need military aid and support, that is 100%. When we went to the front lines we spoke with the people from the Peshmerga troops and they definitely need the aid.

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

I'm not in disagreement with you on that aid going there. I'm saying the countries best positioned to do that are Britain, the U.S., and France, and I think Australia has just become involved too. I may be mistaken on that. But from a military standpoint, they're far better equipped for advanced moves in the area, and Canada is less so inclined.

The other aspect of whether or not there are boots on the ground over there is still in debate, even in the U.S.

But for immediate action—as you said, winter is coming on—if we start the preparations and start the humanitarian aid flowing and count on the other nations to support that effort....

[Rev. Majed El Shafie]

Mr. Marston, to be honest with you, I am not a military expert as well. I am scared that to answer the question would not be fair to the needs on the ground militarily.

My advice is to do it in a balanced way so both military and humanitarian aid complete each other. That's how I see it.