Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on June 18th, 2019

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Ms. Michels, in your testimony you touched briefly on Egypt and Pakistan. I want to focus attention a little on the Middle East. I want to give you a few numbers of the dwindling demographics in the Middle East for Christians. In the 20th century, the percentage was around 20% Christian. If we look at the 21st century, it's now anywhere from 10% to 15%. You can obviously note all the wars that have been happening and the instability. I will focus your attention on two areas. For example, Gaza had an estimated 4,000 Christians before the Israeli blockade in 2007. If you fast-forward 13 years, fewer than 700 Christians still remain in a population of 2.2 million. If we look at the neighbouring country of Lebanon, Christians were the majority in the country in the 1940s and 1950s. In 2017 it was roughly 36%. We're seeing dwindling numbers of Christians.

I would note that Lebanon has a confessional system. That's the political structure there. It's based on religion. The political structure is based on religion. The president would be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister would be a Muslim Sunni, and the speaker of the house would be a Muslim Shia. I spoke to my Lebanese colleagues and said if we ran there, we could take each position, because we come from different religious backgrounds.

Where I'm going with this is that if you look at a Middle Eastern structure and the instability that is happening there, and you look at a western structure, it's not perfect, but during the Enlightenment, the American Revolution and the French Revolution pushed for more equalities, freedoms and rights. They separated themselves from monarchies to a government that is for the people, by the people. This growth of democracies in the west saw a rise in secularism and secular national governance. Although the west is not perfect, if we separated ourselves from these political structures that I mentioned—for example, in Lebanon—do you feel that we would see less persecution and see a retention, if not increase, in the numbers of maybe Christian and other minority groups?

[Mindy Michels]

That's a big question. In terms of the work I do, I don't know that I'm qualified to fully say what is the best political structure. Obviously, from Freedom House we support the growth of democracy, but as I noted in my testimony, even in places that are democratic there are still challenges in the way in which minorities across the board, certainly Christian but also other religious minorities, can be treated.

I don't know that I have the research or political science background to be able to speak to the question as you've asked it. I'm sure there are many people who have written on it and who are far more knowledgeable than I am about that. I will say, in terms of western countries, that there has been at least some positive movement. As to where there is some positive development, Canada, Ireland and Malta, I believe, have recently rescinded blasphemy laws that were still on the books. They were obviously not being utilized in the same kinds of ways as in the testimony given by me and others on the panel, but that is certainly an example to be positive about.

Others on the panel might be able to speak to your question more significantly than I've been able to.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you.

If I could, I'll turn it over to Mr. Floyd Brobbel.

I know it's a long question, but hopefully you can give us some insights.

[Floyd Brobbel]

Yes. I don't know if I could speak to that. Part of my question [Technical difficulty—Editor] why are Christians [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I think that they're [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

I'm sorry, Mr. Brobbel.

[Floyd Brobbel]

As a result of that, you see Christians leaving the country and finding other regions to live in.

As to your specific question, again, we don't necessarily focus on those aspects of Christians departing. We look for ways to help Christians continue to remain in countries. We believe that having a church in the country is positive for the country. We seek ways we can assist the church to continue to grow and to remain in the region even in the midst of difficulties.

I don't know if that fully answers your question.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

For the witnesses, where I'm going with this is that I believe the political structures that are currently in place are infringing on individual rights.

It's not a stable structure, as I mentioned, the confessional system in Lebanon, where you can be given a position or you can run for a position, but it has to be based on your religion. It's not based on a secular system like we have in the west. I think that's the reason why we have these political wars and instabilities and these types of policies that unfortunately result in a system that is not stable.

Could I go on to the next two witnesses?

[Anna Lee Stangl]

It's a really fascinating question. I've worked with CSW for about 18 years now. One of my most memorable occasions is from the time when I was living in Brussels and working at our EU office. I was bringing to Brussels a delegation of Burmese nationals from different ethnic minorities to learn about the structures, and not just the European Union institutions but also the Belgian federal system and the way that was set up. They also went to Switzerland and saw that one.

I think that one good thing in the west is that we have so many different models of democracy. Each country has a model tailored to its reality and its history, and often taking into account minorities without doing quotas, like what you've mentioned.

I think one recommendation that I would be very much in favour of is that Canada invest in training and capacity building in that sense of exposing this to people from these countries, where religious freedom violations and other human rights violations are very high and are often linked to a deficit of democracy. It's about exposing them to other systems, so they can learn and take from Canada, the U.S., Belgium or the EU the lessons they've learned, the things that have worked and those that haven't worked, and devise their own democratic structures.

I do think that what you're pointing out is really important, in that in most countries with a high level of religious freedom violations you have a history that is not particularly democratic, does not have the rule of law and does not have a history of human rights respect. We often have to begin from the ground in terms of training people in basic concepts of human rights and democracy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you very much. That's the time, unfortunately.

We'll go to Ms. Hardcastle for seven minutes.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for your intriguing testimony on this issue. I'm going to ask you about a couple of things that haven't been talked about here yet, but I'm thinking that this is extremely germane now and is a modern problem that we have. I know that it was brought up in terms of the rise of nationalism with Hinduism. I guess it's for all of you.

I want to start with you, Ms. Kuo. Can you talk a bit about how social media is contributing to how those narratives are set up? On the misinformation campaigns and mob violence, is there something there that we should be contemplating as a government? It is something that we're thinking about here in our country and in our legislative environment in terms of where social media fits in. I'd just like to understand how social media is actually a factor in these phenomena.

Could we start with you, Ms. Kuo? Then I'll give everyone chance to comment in my time allocation. Go ahead.

[Lily Kuo]

In the case of China, social media has been pretty tightly controlled but it is used as a platform for some of these churches. I mentioned that the Rain still holds their services and they still put out daily scripture and sermons. In the case of China, social media is usually in the hands of the people but it is highly censored, and it can also be used as evidence against people. Comments that people make in a WeChat group—WeChat is the messaging platform that a lot of people use—or posts can be used against them later on in court hearings, in their trials.

In terms of misinformation that goes around, in the last year there's been a big drive to talk about foreign forces by government media, state-owned media, to kind of give the public a sense that they're under siege. The enemy is foreign forces that are interfering in China, and we need to be wary of religion being used as a guise for those foreign forces. There's a lot of information or misinformation in that way.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay. Ms. Michels, do you want to...?

[Mindy Michels]

I can speak to that briefly. In the religious freedom cases that I know of—and I'm sure there are cases that this has been a part of, and I can get information on those for you if you want—we do work broadly across a whole suite. This particular fund is within a larger suite of emergency funds working on human rights across the board.

With regard to what you're identifying—the use of social media, governments targeting people based on their social media posts, and surveillance—one of the things we look at quite frequently is making sure that our communications are not going to be under surveillance. Doing that is quite challenging since the mechanisms that governments are using in order to surveil communication are evolving and adapting. Even as encryption evolves and adapts, so does the capacity to crack that encryption.

One of the things we've done, particularly on the protecting belief fund, is to try to make sure we're training the people we work with to be able to use more secure modes of communication. Quite often people in these situations don't necessarily have awareness of or access to ways to protect themselves from this type of surveillance even within the communications that we have with them, so we're quite aware of that.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Brobbel.

[Floyd Brobbel]

That's a great question. I don't have a clear answer for you, but I think you've given me something to ask. When we're in the field, we often deal with Christians who are quite rural and who don't have the technology or the wherewithal to use social media, so this is not an area where we really gain a lot of information. Certainly within our circles, within our work with the Religious Liberty Partnership and with other groups, I think this would be an intriguing question to put forward and to get more information on, so I thank you for that.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay.

Ms. Stangl, do you want to add anything?

[Anna Lee Stangl]

I think social media is a double-edged sword. We've seen a lot of really positive benefits from it in terms of groups being able to mobilize, share information and even meet online. In Cuba, it's been a real lifeline for human rights defenders and religious groups there.

On the converse side, we see examples like the one I gave from India, where two Hindu nationalists attacked two Christian men. Not only did they do it, but they filmed it and put it on social media, where they were clearly identifiable and there were no repercussion from that. We've seen many other cases like that in the past year or past couple of years, involving attacks not just on Christians but also on Muslims. I think there you see this issue with the rule of law going hand in hand with abuse of social media, and, in the case of the Indian government, with not cracking down even though it should be something that could be used as evidence since it's pretty easy to follow up.

Definitely social media has also been used to organize not just positive, peaceful demonstrations but also violent acts, so it's something to watch. Again, I don't know if I have the answer either—I'm not a tech expert—but I think you've brought up a very good point and it is something to be aware of.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Are any of you aware of any situations in which one Christian community that is sanctioned by the state helps or reaches out to another Christian community that isn't? None of you...?

[Mindy Michels]

I know about situations in which other faith groups do, but they may know more about the Christian groups helping.

[Floyd Brobbel]

I know that we had testimony a few weeks ago from our Sri Lankan friends who came in. They work with the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka, which is often helping not only other religions but other Christian denominations in their country in times of need.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Is that it?

[Floyd Brobbel]

That's it. Yes.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay. That's very interesting. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Ms. Khalid for five minutes.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses today for their very compelling testimony.

As we were talking about the very serious issue of Christian persecution around the world, I think a number of themes came up. We talked about the state. We talked about non-state actors. Then we talked a bit about what Ms. Stangl brought up on the need to build from the ground up.

I'll start with you, Ms. Stangl. I was in Ethiopia last year. That is a diverse community in and of itself, where there are Christians who live with other faiths as well. On the ground, as you know, as an outsider, I didn't really see the dynamics of how the locals and the people at the grassroots level interact.

Ms. Stangl, when we talk about persecution and discrimination against Christian minorities in countries such as Ethiopia and around the world, in the countries we've talked about, what is the relationship like between neighbours at the grassroots level? Do you think this is something that we need to address as well on a systemic level?