October 30, 2017: Oral Testimony for Hearing before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

“Unintended Consequences: M103 Harms all Canadians, especially Muslims”

By Dr. M. ZUHDI JASSER
PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY
October 30, 2017

Introduction

Thank you Chairperson Fry and members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for holding this very important hearing on studying whether and how to fulfill the recommendations of M-103. I am Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, President and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) based in Phoenix, Arizona. I am here today not only at the request of your staff, but I am taking the time to be with you because I could not feel more strongly that our current national, and moreover, joint Western direction in addressing the complexities of Muslim related issues from combating Islamist inspired terrorism to domestic tranquility is deeply flawed and profoundly dangerous. For Canadians, many of the questions with which you are wrestling, we as your American neighbors and allies to the south are also wrestling with as we all have since 9-11 and now especially since the rampant increase of Islamist inspired acts of terror against our homelands with the advent of ISIS and continued growth of global jihadism.

As a devout American Muslim who loves my faith, and loves my nation, I must tell you that any emphasis on “Islamophobia” is profoundly flawed and will continue our nations down the slippery slope of actually catering to Islamist separatism. I am here to tell you that by simply even using that term and referring to it as “Islamophobia” and getting the government into the business of monitoring any form of speech will end up paradoxically heightening societal divisions. We must not coddle Muslim communities which will only further separate Muslims out. Trying to suppress what can be painful speech about Islam at society’s fringes will actually paradoxically feed an unintended consequence of fomenting non-Muslim fears of Islam. Citizens who cannot have their real fears heard and their speech exercised will be stifled from the public sector and push underground resentment that will only foment.

Yes, all racism should be addressed by our free societies and prevented in all its forms, but it actually hurts Muslims for a government based in universal rights of all to pay special attention to protecting “Islam” from harsh critique versus protecting all human beings of faith or no faith from actual bigotry. The “special” treatment of Muslims will actually backfire and cause our communities to be culturally derided, hated, and feared more because our faith is not held to the same free-for-all as any other faith.

Brief Background on American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) and The Muslim Reform Movement (MRM)

Our American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) was founded in 2003 in the wake of the horrific attacks of September 11. For us, it is a very personal mission to leave our American Muslim children a legacy that their faith is based in the unalienable right to liberty and to teach them that the principles that founded America do not contradict their faith but strengthen it. AIFD’s founding principle is that we as Muslims are able to best practice our faith in a society like the United States that guarantees the rights of every individual under God but blind to any one faith with no governmental intermediary stepping between the individual and the creator to interpret the will of God. Because of this, our mission is explicitly to advocate for the principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, liberty and freedom through the separation of mosque and state. We believe that this mission from within the “House of Islam” is the only way to inoculate Muslim youth and young adults against radicalization. The “Liberty narrative” is the only effective counter to the “Islamist narrative.”

AIFD is the most prominent American Muslim organization directly confronting and attempting to reform against the ideas of political Islam. We believe Muslims can openly counter the common belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic state (Islamism). AIFD’s mission is derived from a love for America and a love of our faith of Islam. The theocratic “Islamic” regimes of the Middle East and many Muslim majority nations use their interpretations of Islam and ‘shar’ia’ (Islamic jurisprudence) as a way to control Muslim populations. We believe, as did America’s founding fathers, that the purest practice of faith is one in which the faithful have complete freedom to accept or reject any of the tenants or laws of the faith no different than we enjoy as Americans in this Constitutional republic. We constantly ask that Americans not just observe what is happening inside the House of Islam but that they take the sides of the reformers, dissidents, and secularists against the theocratic Islamists.

AIFD was founded on the premise that the root cause of Islamist terrorism is the ideology of political Islam and a belief in the preference for and supremacy of an Islamic state. Terrorism is but a means to that end. Most Islamist terror is driven by the desire of Islamists to drive the influence of the west (the ideas of liberty) out of the Muslim consciousness and Muslim majority societies. With almost a quarter of the world’s population Muslim, American or Canadian security will never come without an understanding and winning out of the ideas of liberty by Muslims and an understanding of the harm of political Islam by non-Muslims. This will not happen if tough public discussion on Islam is muted by fears of “offending Muslim, read Islamist, sensibilities”.

We work to engage Muslim youth and empower them with the independence to question the ideas of imams, clerics, and so many “tribal” leaders of Muslim communities unwilling to work toward reform and modernity. We empower Muslim youth to have the confidence to take personal intellectual ownership of their own interpretation of Islam, the Qur’an, Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), and shariah (Islamic jurisprudence) and separate mosque and state. We work to advocate for the ideas of gender equality, genuine religious pluralism, and an unwavering preference of the secular state and a secular law over the Islamic state among other central ideas in modernity.

Our mission is on the front lines of what is probably the most essential and yet contentious debate of the 21st century. So it should be easy to understand why many Muslims may agree with our mission to separate mosque and state and marginalize political Islam, yet want to remain private and out of the public eye as supporters.

AIFD most recently convened and helped launch the Muslim Reform Movement (MRM) in December 2015 in Washington D.C. The Muslim Reform Movement is a coalition of over 15 Western Muslim Leaders (from the U.S., Canada, and Europe) whose goal is to actively fight radical Islam from inside by confronting the idea of Islamism at its roots. The MRM has written a Declaration for Muslim Reform, a living document which was presented to all Islamic organizations, leaders and mosques across the U.S. in 2016 (Appendix 1), with hopes of using its principles as a firewall to clearly separate radical Islamists from Muslims who believe in universal human rights.

Not one iota of this work is possible in an environment where government agencies and the western public writ large are unwilling to understand and engage Muslim groups domestically and abroad on their diverse interpretations of core terms, ideas, and movements. The attempts and policies of the Obama and Trudeau administrations and their advisors to obstruct the use of terms which are central to the precursor characteristics of radicalized Muslims is willfully blind, negligent, and leaves us bare against the threat of radical Islamism. It renders our greatest allies within the Muslim community- genuine reformers-entirely impotent and marginalized.

I hope and pray that my testimony today will open your eyes to how central the engagement of honest terminology is in demarcating who are our genuine allies from those who are or are working with our enemies abroad and the insurgents within.

Overview of M103 mandates
M103 asks your government, now via your committee, to assess the following:

1- “Address and quell the increasing climate of hate and fear”: I believe it’ll actually make it worse preventing the tough conversations we need to have publicly and instead allowing them to boil underneath the surface.
2- Specifically condemns “Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination and take note of House of Commons e-petition e-411 and the issues raised” which are all related to Islam, Muslims, and so-called Islamophobia: I believe that this inordinate focus on Islam and even Muslims will actually backfire and not have the effect upon your citizenry and culture that the author of M103 feels it will. It will only empower the tribal leaders, the Islamists in our midst. Racism and discrimination in all its forms should be fought and focusing on one community under the name of their faith (Islamophobia) rather than about the bigotry against those individuals (Muslims) will actually exacerbate the situation.

3- Asks your committee to “undertake a study on how the government could (i) develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia, in Canada, while ensuring a community-centered focus with a holistic response through evidence-based policy-making”: While the government should certainly be in the business of protecting individual citizens from acts of violence and protecting their rights of free speech and religious freedom, they should not be in the business of studying negative or positive sentiments about a particular faith.

4- Asks you to “collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities”: Again, this seems harmless enough. But the the focus should not simply and solely be on Muslims when in fact preventing racism and discrimination should be something that addresses all vulnerable minorities or groups. In Europe, areas for example seeing spikes in bigotry against Muslims are also seeing spikes in anti-Semitism and other forms of xenophobia.

Let me elaborate on these positions in the following areas to which I would like to call your attention.

‘Muslim’ issues should not be partisan wedge issues

First, I must emphasize, that having difficulties, as I and so many Canadian Muslims do with any of the above mandates imposed upon your committee by M103 does not in any way mean that individuals like myself, especially as a Muslim, would ever turn a blind eye towards hate crimes or discrimination against Muslims or any vulnerable minority for that matter. But we, Muslims, should not want special treatment beyond that afforded any other faith community. You should address anti-Semitism, and any form of xenophobia with the same vigor with no special treatment for Canadian Muslims.

Moreover, the best mechanism for your government to address any bigotry, that may exist against Muslims, is certainly not through the language and mandate of this proposal originated from MP Iqra Khalid. This resolution and the commentary on the original e-petition (E-411) actually smack of the language seen in Islamic Republics and their sharia-based (Islamist jurisprudence) restrictions on free speech rather than what we should expect from the freest nations on the planet which protect the rights of every individual equally with no protections of any religions or their ideas- only protections for individual citizens.

There is nothing partisan that should either support or deny the premise of M103. For both liberals and conservatives, the protection of women’s rights, minority rights, and the rights of non-Muslims to criticize Islam in the struggle for modernity should bring you to reject the term ‘Islamophobia’ and any protections against it. There is absolutely no partisan or one-sided basis for rejecting jihad, Islamism, Salafism, and any other idea from within the Islamist mindset. M103 protects all these ideas from critique and dissection under the rubric of Islamophobia. If you are going to study anything, it may be wise for you to study why otherwise liberal anti-Islamist Muslims (more natural ideological allies of Liberals) are finding more support among Conservatives for our reformist ideas while fundamentalist theocratic Muslims are finding home among Liberals? Tahir Gora recently looked at this question for Clarion Project. The answer may lie in the exploitation of Muslim rights at the altar of group identity politics.

Increase in hate crimes?
According to one study the number of hate crimes versus Muslim Canadians doubled over a three-year period from 45 in 2012 to 99 in 2014. This was reported in 2016. I will not support nor deny here the reproducibility and validity of this data. But even if we accept these large shifts in relatively small numbers, this ignores so many variables. This is still in a setting where Jewish Canadians are still the most likely to be attacked of any vulnerable minority faith group. The total number of hate crimes in Canada went from 1414 in ’12 to 1295 in ’14. Thus, if you look at the totality and the proportion of numbers of 99 reports against Muslims versus 1300 hate crimes in total, it seems disproportional and biased to simply address bigotry towards Muslims. And this is not to mention that if and when you do address bigotry towards Muslims, please just address that-bigotry towards Muslims– and not a contrived Islamist concept of “Islamophobia”.

Muslims should be treated equally like any other group and not be coddled or protected more than any other group at the first sign of any concerns with a different threshold for study than any other minority faith group or vulnerable community. Doing so will in fact backfire and cause an increase in hostility and forces of separatism.

Do not use the term Islamophobia
You should understand that the term ‘Islamophobia’ was created by Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) nations in the 90’s in order to stifle criticism of Islam by Western nations and free market open media. It is a deceptive concept Islamist regimes employed for centuries as there are countless number of Muslims and non-Muslims (millions) in jails across Muslim majority nations for the crimes of blasphemy and apostasy linked to “criticism of Islam”. Any criticism of their government and legal systems are labeled Islamophobia in order mask systemic domestic repression under the guise of protecting ‘sacred Islam’. Muslim reformers like myself are attacked and derided even in our own mosques and Islamic institutions here in the West under the rubric of protection of the community from “Islamophobia” since they equate criticism of theocratic Islamism and Islamist groups with “Islamophobia”.

This is an inevitable result when a government gives ideas (like Islam) rights. The identification of bigotry under the label of a ‘phobia’ against a faith rather than bigotry against a particular group of people is Orwellian and in the end will harm Muslims and our rights. Ideas do not have rights. Islam is an idea. It does not have rights. Muslims are human beings that have rights and should be protected like any other free Canadian citizen.

Thus, your use of the term ‘Islamophobia’ and study thereof will actually have the effect of stifling your greatest most liberal allies within the Muslim community including the leaders of our Muslim Reform Movement. The ideas of our Muslim Reform Movement declaration have been derided as Islamophobic by many of the Islamist allies of the authors of M103. It is unfathomable to me that in the freest nations on the planet including Canada and the United States and Europe that we are being marginalized by our own communities through the platforms gained by resolutions like M103 which stifle our critique of Islamism under the rubric of ‘Islamophobia’.

You were asked to study systemic racism and religious discrimination. Islam is not a race. Just like you should address anti-Semitism but not Judeo-phobia our nations should address bigotry and hate against Muslims but not Islamophobia. You are also stifling the maturation of Muslims in dealing with the most difficult issues in our faith. “Tough love” for Canadian Muslims requires that you provide and protect the public space for the discussion of any ideas related to faith no matter how unpalatable while protecting individual rights, but it is not your role to protect ideas like Islam.

For example, the recent rejection in Quebec of the so-called freedom to where a face veil ‘niqab’ was described as Islamophobia, when in fact the reality is that there is nothing more pro-Muslim than protecting the individual rights of women to be identified and autonomous, and not be facelessly oppressed. The central aspect of the protection of individual rights is the ability to identify people by face. The oppression of women should not be dismissed under the guise of religious freedom. The claim that there is a slippery slope for government to prohibit niqab (face covering) and then go on to other religious clothing is absurd. There is no slippery slope from the niqab or face-veil to then having the government get involved in any other clothing such as the hijab or the burqa. No. The government should not be involved in personal dress; however even our Supreme Court in the U.S. has deemed it illegal for demonstrations to occur with facemasks.

M103 opens the door to connecting any and all issues even remotely involving Muslims to the so-called Islamophobia. This should be stopped from the get-go.

Harm of M103
There are many harms and unintended consequences that would naturally follow as a result of implementing M103.

1- The enabling and enshrinement of the term Islamophobia with the empowerment of all the Islamists domestically and abroad including their regimes who use that term to shut down dissent.

2- The empowerment of Islamists over Muslim reformers who are silenced by being called ‘Islamophobes’.

3- The infantilization of Muslims by disproportionally protecting them more than any other vulnerable community in Canada. This is especially true since “Islamophobia” includes the perception that Muslims are particularly sensitive about critique of our faith, Islam.

4- It will backfire and end up separating Muslims out more and feeding to both extremes in today’s Canadian society. Thus it will actually not only fail but make things worse than what it was intended to do at its stated inception.

5- It will feed into a false and deceptive partisan narrative on Muslim citizenship instead of both sides of the aisle agreeing to lift up common values shared by all Canadian heritage which are rejected by Islamists.

6- M103 treats Muslims as a monolith and in fact we are an ideologically diverse community for which many reject the platforms created by the Islamist establishment on our behalf. If many or most Muslims believe there is no need for this, you will cause more harm. No one appointed MP Khalid or any Islamist agitators our spokespersons.

7- The security apparatus will be harmed after being hamstrung even further in addressing the root cause of violent Islamism-non-violent Islamism. Petitions like e-411 which apparently led to M103 claim that radicals are an “infinitesimally small number” and “these violent individuals do not reflect in any way the values of the teachings of the religion of Islam. In fact they misrepresent the religion.” While most Muslims reject the violence, many remain in deep denial that the non-violent supremacist Islamist precursors lead directly to terrorism and need reform. You cannot divorce the connection between the cultural ostracization of Muslim reformers against Islamism and the blindness created by bromides and anesthetics like M103. Your security apparatus’ approach to violent extremism (CVE) and not (CVI-Countering Violent Islamism) comes from a fear of naming Islamism due to this major obstacle of the contrived “Islamophobia”.

8- Instead of entrenching further the obstacles to study Islamism, you should contrarily actually free up the public discourse on Islam and stop infantilizing Muslims. You should allow us the freedom to have major public debates about how non-violent Islamism is the precursor to violent Islamism. The conditions called for in M-103 are a major obstacle to that entire process.

9- Governments should never be in the business of protecting the image of a faith. This is what the Saudis try to always do regarding their radical version of Islam which is the root cancer -Wahhabism–, and it thus should not be the role of the Canadian government to protect the image of Islam. That is a slippery slope which will cause many of the problems noted above.

10- In fact, the avoidance of a discourse on Islam does not leave the government neutral. It effectively hands the argument to the predominant current power structure of the domestic and global Muslim faith community-the suffocating influence of ‘petro-Islam’, the Wahhabi version of Islam in Saudi Arabia and the Islamist movement of the Muslim Brotherhood based out of Egypt and Qatar or the Deobandis of Pakistan. Make no mistake this whole debate of this hearing is not only about the plight of Canadian Muslims, but it is also about appeasement of a host of foreign Islamist regimes (Islamic republics) who our government is afraid to critically engage on their supremacist shar’ia states and even protects from debates and critique in our own homelands.

11- Denial of the role of various forms of Islamic theology in radicalizing Muslims and creating the domestic and global threat of Islamism, will only fuel bigotry in our cultures rather than quell it.

12- Pew polling demonstrates that American feelings about Muslims, for example, are “cooler” than any other faith group scoring a 40 out of 100. In fact, I would ask you to see that there is actually nothing that would do more to melt away that anti-Muslim bigotry to the extent that it exists than for Americans to see Muslims step away from denial and actually engaging and confronting the Jihad with their own jihad for liberty and against theocracy. We should be calling for a jihad against jihad rather than shielding Muslims and Americans from the tough love that they need.

13- Please make sure that you understand that the advice you receive from ideological Islamists is compromised by their fealty to clerics, and the tribal construct of Islamic states for Muslim majority nations.

14- In the United States, and in the West, Muslim reformers are constantly confronted with advocates like MP Iqra Khalid who provide an apologetic for Islamists and their ideology of Islamism promoting similar restrictions on freedom of speech seen in many Islamic Republics from Pakistan to Iran and Saudi Arabia to name a few. We must understand that for what it is.

15- M103 empowers the OIC lobby. The OIC is the proverbial elephant in the room. The constant refrain from the Obama and Trudeau administrations is that the West should not “declare war against 1.6 billion Muslims and their governments” is related to global intimidation by the OIC sadly while ignoring the plight of Muslim and non-Muslim dissidents in their nations who lead the fight against Islamist movements.

Conclusion:
I recommend the following in lieu of M103. We must treat our Muslim communities with a tough love and give the following recommendations:

1. Address any bigotry and racism equally across faith and racial communities without a disproportionate focus on Muslims.

2. Do not use the term Islamophobia.

3. The best way to melt away any bigotry that exists against Muslims is for Muslims to abandon the denial, victimization and grievance narratives and instead lead an ideological revolution against Islamism. When our anti-jihad work is seen to predominate our bandwidth, then bigotry will whither on the vine. See our Muslim Reform Movement. (Appendix A).

4. ‘Whole of government’ should immediately move from a center of gravity on “Countering Violent Islamism” (CVE) to one centered on “Countering Violent Islamism” (CVI).

5. The Canadian government and public discourse (academia, NGO’s, and media) must include a broad spectrum of ideologically diverse voices in the Muslim community. Just as you have done in the testimony to this committee. It is time to end the un-democratic ban on any theological terms and with that also end the marginalization of reform minded Muslims most notably the bipartisan group of Muslim leaders of the Muslim Reform Movement. This will melt away bigotry far more quickly than making people fear any discussion about Islam, Islamism, and Muslims.

6. It is time to stop engaging Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups in government and media and recognize their misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and anti-American ideological underpinnings. We must recognize that they are not the only voice for Western Muslims. We must make women’s issue and freedom of conscience a litmus test. These groups, when pressed, will fail.

7. It is time to stop giving credence to the concerns of OIC dictatorships about our word choices and counter-radicalization strategies. Our real allies abroad are the free thinkers in their prisons not in their palaces.

8. In fact, Canadian Muslims, like all in the West, have a moral obligation to utilize the freedoms we have here to counter all the ideas which are the precursor ideas to militant Islamism through public reform that create these massive Islamist political movements.

Respectfully submitted,

M. Zuhdi Jasser,
President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy
October 30, 2017

Giving Tuesday and a look at what your donations have supported

On this Giving Tuesday, the team from AIFD wanted to share a few milestones from 2017 that, without your support, would not have been possible.

AIFD does the work on the front lines no one else is doing and we can’t continue to lead without you.

Throughout 2017, AIFD and President & Founder, M. Zuhdi Jasser M.D., have taken part in a variety of interesting opportunities and discussions including:

* In January Zuhdi debated the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Salam al-Maryati in Orange County, CA, on the topic “Is the Muslim Reform Movement Necessary?”.

* In March, AIFD sent open letters to leadership of the Detroit community regarding the doctors who performed Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) on young girls and setting the tone for a national conversation during the first federal case against FGM criminals in the United States.

* AIFD participated in CPAC 2017 where Zuhdi discussed the state of the Middle East and ISIS.

* Muslim Reform Movement (MRM) leaders and founders visited Toronto, Canada in March for an engaging workshop.

* AIFD hosted Muslim leaders from India, by recommendation of the State Department, discussing “Encouraging Moderate Voices: Countering Violent Extremism Online” in Phoenix, AZ during August.

* In September, Zuhdi traveled to Philadelphia for a NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting to be part of a day-long discussion on issues relevant to the Middle East and the Islamic presence in Europe.

* Also in September, Zuhdi joined ACU leadership for their inaugural Israeli Mission to develop a plan to defend the right of Israel to be a free and sovereign nation.

* In November, Zuhdi presented testimony to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on “Unintended Consequences: M103 Harms all Canadians, especially Muslims”.

* An invitation to the November 2017 Web Summit took Zuhdi to Lisbon where he was a part of a dynamic panel discussion on “Choosing the enemy: Media Narratives Around Terrorism”.

* In Phoenix, AZ, AIFD’s Community Engagement Director, Courtney Lonergan, facilitated an InterFaith event hosting over 400 people that was sponsored in part by AIFD. The MRM Declaration was on hand to help inform those wanting to learn more about this group

* Courtney also held a town-hall while in the San Francisco in late November discussing MRM, the declaration and how others can get involved.

* Also in November, the J. Reuben Clark Law Society in Phoenix and Salt Lake City hosted Religious Freedom Symposiums with Zuhdi as a key note speaker and panel member.

* In December AIFD will be represented in London by invite from the Henry Jackson Society to discuss “A Wake-Up Call: Creating Transatlantic network to Battle Radical Islam”.

* Throughout the year, Zuhdi was the key note speaker for a variety of groups including the Jewish Federation of Collier County, Florida, and for the Citizens for National Security, Boca Raton, Florida as well as for several prominent groups in Arizona.

* AIFD presented Radical Islam for Law Enforcement (RILE) to members of the Arizona Department of Public Safety to help them provide law enforcement with tools to help them better understand the Muslim communities that they serve.

* With over 500 media appearances, AIFD was very much on the front lines of the battle to counter Violent Islamism.

* AIFD continues to strengthen our presence on social media. The Reform This! weekly podcast by Zuhdi (also available on iTunes here) has seen substantial growth over the past year and Twitter and FaceBook continue to be a good avenue for conversation and an exchange of ideas. The AIFDTV YouTube channel has a complete library of all of the media appearances, panel discussions and more that AIFD has been a part of.

For 2018 and beyond our lead policy initiative is to change the center of axis in the US counter-terrorism and foreign policy strategy from CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) to CVI (Countering Violent Islamism) and to remove Radical Islam from the conversation as Islam is not the issue – it is those who choose to take their interpretation of Islam and turn it into a tool for war.

Again, without your support and generosity, AIFD would not be able to continue on our mission. It is with sincere gratitude that we thank each and every one of you and hope to continue to count on your trust and support in this mighty endeavor.

“Unintended Consequences: M103 Harms all Canadians, especially Muslims”

Canada ORAL TESTIMONY for Hearing before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

“Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism.”

Willful Blindness Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating

Anti-Semitism Human Rights Abuses in Egypt

Anti Semitism Human Rights Abuses in Egypt

I want to thank the Members of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa for holding this hearing on “Human Rights Abuses in Egypt” and inviting me to testify today on behalf of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). With your approval, I would like to submit my written testimony for the record.

Today is a particularly appropriate day to hold this hearing. Emerging from the ashes of World War II, 65 years ago today, December 10, 1948, 48 nations in the UN General Assembly adopted a remarkable document that is as relevant today as it was then: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This vote revealed a consensus across cultures that people possess basic rights which governments need to affirm and protect. However, today it is all too apparent that too many governments fail to honor those rights, including the pivotal right of religious freedom. During today’s hearing, we will focus on one of these governments, Egypt.

Among the recent convulsions in Egypt, few have shocked the conscience more or been more emblematic of the derailment of the January 2011 revolution than the killing of more than 1,000 demonstrators in August by Egyptian security forces and the subsequent horrific attacks by extremists and Muslim Brotherhood supporters against the country’s Coptic Christian population, the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the Middle East. As USCIRF has documented over the years, much of the sectarian violence targeting Copts has occurred with impunity.

Because of these and other concerns, a USCIRF delegation journeyed to Cairo earlier this year where I joined fellow Commissioners Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett and former Commissioner Dr. Azizah al-Hibri. We spoke with a broad array of interlocutors, from the U.S. ambassador and high-level Egyptian officials to human rights defenders and women’s rights advocates, and from Muslim religious leaders to members of religious minority communities.

We concluded from these meetings and our own observations that, notwithstanding the serious human rights problems of the Mubarak era, there were scant grounds for optimism in the Morsi era. Among those with whom we spoke, their most common concerns focused on increasing religious radicalization that negatively impacted women and religious minorities; troubling provisions in the new constitution limiting religious freedom and other rights; and frustrations about the continued climate of impunity since the start of the revolution for numerous acts of violence, including those against Copts. Some of this continues to apply today.

As evidenced by the violence unleashed against Copts since August 14 of this year and the increased stifling of dissent by the interim government, the post-Morsi era has gotten off to a similarly bad start.

Indeed, it is obvious that in spite of the revolution’s early promise of progress, hopes have been dashed repeatedly for a peaceful and inclusive democracy that upholds the rule of law for all and adheres fully to internationally recognized human rights standards, including those pertaining to freedom of religion or belief for every Egyptian, including members of religious minorities.

In my testimony, I will discuss the status of religious freedom in Egypt, with a focus on Copts who are its largest religious minority, numbering at least eight million people. I also will discuss the problems faced by other religious minorities and Muslim dissidents and conclude with USCIRF’s recommendations on protecting religious minorities and the right to religious freedom for every Egyptian.

By any measure, the importance of religious freedom in Egypt and around the world cannot be overstated. Across the world, there is a powerful correlation between religious freedom and related human rights on the one hand and social stability, safety and security, economic development and prosperity, and political democracy on the other. Similarly, our Commission has seen how the absence of this freedom correlates with instability and insecurity, violent extremism, and a plethora of other societal ills.

We believe that Egypt is no different when it comes to this critical correlation. A successful transition to stable democratic governance in Cairo, and with it, respect for fundamental freedoms including religious freedom, is central to Egypt’s stability and its future as a pivotal anchor in the volatile Middle East. And to the extent that the United States and the world community have a stake in what happens in this region, we must not disengage from these issues, but continue to take a firm stand for freedom.

As Egyptians are debating their new constitution, some of the worst Morsi-era provisions have been removed, although the true test will be how the Egyptian government interprets and implements this new document once passed by referendum.

Incitement and Increased Sectarian Rhetoric
Since the beginning of the transition, human rights activists inside Egypt have been concerned that radical groups have advanced in the country, with detrimental effects on the ability to foster an open civil society, genuine democratic reform, and improvements in freedom of religion or belief. Crime and lawlessness in Egypt increased due to a decrease in police and security presence, with some extremist militant groups using this lapse to impose extra-judicial punishments. Early on, Sufi Muslims experienced increased attacks and harassment by Islamist militant groups, which deem as heretical a number of Sufi religious practices, including the veneration of saints.

In the months leading up to the June 2012 presidential elections, sectarian tensions between Muslims and Christians were exacerbated by an increase in incitement to violence in Egyptian media and government-funded mosques. There was another spike in tensions in September 2012 after an anti- Muslim film, “Innocence of Muslims,” surfaced on the Internet, resulting in protests in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Islamist clerics and some Gulf-funded satellite television stations used the film as an opportunity to denounce and demonize Coptic Christians, including a prominent Salafi cleric who publicly defiled and ripped a Bible. During former president Morsi’s year in power, sectarian rhetoric and incitement had further increased. Fanning the flames were conservative clerics and extremists, who often used incendiary, sectarian rhetoric and incitement without consequence or accountability.

Among the most vilified groups are Christians, Shi’a, and Baha’is, all religious minority communities. In June, five Egyptian Shi’a were lynched in Giza and extremists dragged their bodies through the streets, shouting anti-Shi’a slogans. These Shi’a were targeted solely because they were congregating at a private home to commemorate a religious festival.

Blasphemy and Defamation Cases
While the government has failed to bring to justice the perpetrators of sectarian attacks, the courts have continued to convict and imprison Egyptian citizens charged with blasphemy under Article 98(f) of its penal code which prohibit “contempt” or “defamation” of religions.

Since Egypt’s January 2011 revolution, USCIRF has observed a significant increase in contempt-of-religion cases.  While most of those targeted are disfavored Muslims, Christians are disproportionately affected. For example, in July 2012, Mohamed Asfour, a Shi’a teacher, was sentenced to one year in prison, reduced from three years, for contempt of religion and “desecration of a place of worship,” although his lawyer says that all he did was pray in a mosque according to Shi’a rituals. Earlier this year, the government charged Bassem Youssef, a Sunni comedian and satirist, with “insulting Islam” on his popular television program.

At least one other Egyptian affected was an atheist. In December 2012, an Egyptian court convicted and sentenced to three years in prison activist Alber Saber for posting of online content that allegedly “insulted God and cast doubt on the books of the Abrahamic religions” and “denied the existence of God and his creation of mankind.”

The majority of those sentenced to prison terms were Christian, mostly based on flimsy evidence and flawed trials. In October 2011, a Cairo criminal court sentenced Ayman Yousef Mansour, a Christian, to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad on a Facebook page he allegedly created. His 2012 appeal was rejected and he remains in prison. In September 2012, an Egyptian court upheld the conviction and three-year prison sentence for Coptic teacher Bishoy Kameel for posting cartoons defaming the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook. In November 2012, an Egyptian court convicted in abstentia seven Egyptian expatriate Copts – allegedly associated with the “Innocence of Muslims” online film – and sentenced them to death for harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam, and spreading false information. In January 2013, the Grand Mufti upheld their death sentences.
In September 2013, a leading Egyptian human rights organization, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), reported a “surge” in religious defamation cases, particularly since the January 2011 revolution, including in the two months after Morsi was removed from power. The report, titled “Siege of Thought,” identified 63 cases of individuals tried for defamation of religion. The report found that outside of Cairo, particularly in Upper Egypt, 100 percent of individuals accused and tried were found guilty. In addition, the report found that 41 percent of the defendants were Christians, a high percentage when compared to the larger population.

Among the most vilified groups are Christians, Shi’a, and Baha’is, all religious minority communities. In June, five Egyptian Shi’a were lynched in Giza and extremists dragged their
bodies through the streets, shouting anti-Shi’a slogans. These Shi’a were targeted solely because they were congregating at a private home to commemorate a religious festival.
Blasphemy and Defamation Cases
While the government has failed to bring to justice the perpetrators of sectarian attacks, the courts have continued to convict and imprison Egyptian citizens charged with blasphemy under Article 98(f) of its penal code which prohibit “contempt” or “defamation” of religions.
Since Egypt’s January 2011 revolution, USCIRF has observed a significant increase in contempt-of-religion cases.
While most of those targeted are disfavored Muslims, Christians are disproportionately affected. For example, in July 2012, Mohamed Asfour, a Shi’a teacher, was sentenced to one year in prison, reduced from three years, for contempt of religion and “desecration of a place of worship,” although his lawyer says that all he did was pray in a mosque according to Shi’a rituals. Earlier this year, the government charged Bassem Youssef, a Sunni comedian and satirist, with “insulting Islam” on his popular television program.
At least one other Egyptian affected was an atheist. In December 2012, an Egyptian court convicted and sentenced to three years in prison activist Alber Saber for posting of online content that allegedly “insulted God and cast doubt on the books of the Abrahamic religions” and “denied the existence of God and his creation of mankind.”

The majority of those sentenced to prison terms were Christian, mostly based on flimsy evidence and flawed trials. In October 2011, a Cairo criminal court sentenced Ayman Yousef Mansour, a Christian, to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad on a Facebook page he allegedly created. His 2012 appeal was rejected and he remains in prison. In September 2012, an Egyptian court upheld the conviction and three-year prison sentence for Coptic teacher Bishoy Kameel for posting cartoons defaming the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook. In November 2012, an Egyptian court convicted in abstentia seven Egyptian expatriate Copts – allegedly associated with the “Innocence of Muslims” online film – and sentenced them to death for harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam, and spreading false information. In January 2013, the Grand Mufti upheld their death sentences.
In September 2013, a leading Egyptian human rights organization, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), reported a “surge” in religious defamation cases, particularly since the January 2011 revolution, including in the two months after Morsi was removed from power. The report, titled “Siege of Thought,” identified 63 cases of individuals tried for defamation of religion. The report found that outside of Cairo, particularly in Upper Egypt, 100 percent of individuals accused and tried were found guilty. In addition, the report found that 41 percent of the defendants were Christians, a high percentage when compared to the larger population.

Coptic Christians and Impunity

Besides directly violating religious freedom, blasphemy and defamation-of-religion laws fuel Egypt’s longtime impunity problem by provoking assaults against Copts as well as other religious minorities for alleged blasphemous speech.

Large-scale attacks on Christians during the first year of the transition in 2011 resulted in the deaths of dozens and injuries to hundreds – such as in Alexandria in January 2011, Imbaba in May 2011, and Maspero in October 2011. The perpetrators of each of these incidents remain unpunished, inviting further violence.

Following President Morsi’s ouster from office on July 3, 2013, there was another increase in violent attacks against Copts and other Christians. Since August 14, the day the Egyptian military and security forces dispersed pro-Morsi protesters, violent religious extremists and thugs launched a coordinated and unprecedented series of attacks against churches throughout the country. In August, at least seven Copts were killed and more than 200 churches and other Christian religious structures, homes, and businesses assaulted. In October, four Copts were killed, including two sisters aged eight and 12, when gunmen on motorcycles opened fire at a wedding party outside a church near Cairo.

The inability to protect Copts and successfully prosecute those responsible for violence targeting the Coptic community continues to foster a climate of impunity, especially in Upper Egypt. In recent years, in response to sectarian violence, Egyptian authorities have conducted “reconciliation” sessions between Muslims and Christians as a way of easing tensions and resolving disputes. In some cases, local authorities and Muslim and Christian religious leaders have abused these reconciliation sessions to compel victims to abandon their claims to any legal remedy.

Copts and other vulnerable religious minorities thus face a dual injustice. First, they face prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment merely for their religious identity. Second, those who attack, maim, and kill them often face no consequences. Copts can lose their freedom or their lives for saying the wrong word or words, but those who kill them often lose nothing at all.

Discrimination against Christians
For all Christian groups, government permission is required to build a new church or repair an existing one, and the approval process continues to be time-consuming and inflexible. No churches were approved for new construction or repair in 2012, despite applications being submitted to governors, as currently required. During USCIRF’s February visit, Egyptian officials stated that the delay was due to the stalled discussions on the law regulating the establishment of places of worship. In 2011 and 2012, Egyptian officials stated that there had been progress on that law. However, after the People’s Assembly was disbanded in 2012, Christian groups temporarily placed on hold negotiations about the draft law because theywanted it to be significantly revised. Some Christian interlocutors expressed preference for a law that governs only churches and not all places of worship. In all likelihood, until the election and seating of the People’s Assembly next year, there will be no progress on this issue.
Egyptian-born Muslims who have converted to Christianity cannot reflect their change of religious affiliation on identity documents, and in many cases, these converts also face intense social hostility. In fact, Mohamed Hegazy – the first convert to Christianity to sue the government in 2007 to allow him to change his religion on his ID card – was arrested last week reportedly for proselytizing and inciting sectarian strife, among other bogus charges. In past cases in which converts have sued for the right to reflect their new religious affiliation on ID cards, Egyptian courts have ruled that Muslims are forbidden from converting from Islam based on principles of Islamic law because conversion would constitute a disparagement of the official state religion and entice other Muslims to convert. Regarding re-converts to Christianity, there remain systemic problems for individuals who converted to Islam and decided to convert back to Christianity to have this change reflected on identity documents. During USCIRF’s visit to Egypt, several interlocutors explained that despite a July 2011 law making it easier to reflect one’s religion on ID cards—and not having to declare “formerly Muslim”—it still is difficult in practice to obtain identity cards.

Other Vulnerable Religious Minorities
Baha’is: Besides Coptic Christians, other vulnerable religious minorities have faced assaults on their freedom to practice their respective faiths. Since 1960, Egypt has banned the Baha’i faith. As a result, the approximately 2,000 Baha’is living in Egypt are unable to meet or engage in communal religious activities. Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Center has issued fatwas over the years, mostly recently in 2003, urging the continued ban on the Baha’i community and condemning its members as apostates.

Intolerance of the Baha’is has risen since 2011, especially in government-controlled media and in public statements prominent Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups have made.

For example, in July 2012, Mahmoud Ghozlan, a Brotherhood spokesman, said the Baha’is are of “Zionist” origin and should not be allowed to practice their faith under the constitution. In February 2012, Abdel Moneim al-Shahat, a prominent Salafi leader, stated publicly that Baha’is were a security threat undeserving of any rights under a new constitution, and should be tried for treason. In August 2012, Gamal Abdel Rahim was appointed as chief editor of the state-controlled newspaper, Al-Ghomhurryia. In 2009, he had called for a Baha’i activist’s murder on live television and incited residents in Sohag to burn Baha’i homes. Three days after his broadcast aired, arson destroyed several Baha’i houses in a Sohag village. In November 2012, and again in January 2013, Egypt’s Minister of Education reportedly said in two separate media interviews that Baha’is could not enroll their children in public schools because their faith is not among those protected by state law or the constitution.

Baha’is who are married still cannot get identity cards, making it impossible to conduct daily transactions like banking, school registration, or car ownership.

Jehovah’s Witnesses: As with the Baha’i faith, Jehovah’s Witnesses have also been banned since 1960, although the community has existed in Egypt since the 1930s. Since their ban, members of the community have endured decades of harassment, physical abuse, and imprisonment at the hands of the Egyptian government. In recent years, the government permitted Jehovah’s Witnesses to meet in private homes in groups of fewer than 30 people, despite the community’s request to meet in larger numbers. However, the community is not allowed to possess their own places of worship or to import bibles and other religious literature. In December 2009, Egypt’s Seventh Circuit Administrative Court handed down a verdict denying Jehovah’s Witnesses legal status.
Today, security officials have stepped up harassment and intimidation of the community by monitoring their activities and communications and by threatening the community with intensified repression if it does not provide membership lists.

Anti-Semitism and the Jewish Community: In 2012, material vilifying Jews with both historical and new anti-Semitic stereotypes continued to appear regularly in Egypt’s state-controlled and semi-official media. This material included anti-Semitic cartoons, images of Jews and Jewish symbols castigating Israel or Zionism, comparisons of Israeli leaders to Hitler and the Nazis, and Holocaust denial literature. Egyptian authorities failed to take adequate steps to combat anti-Semitism in the media. Officials claim that anti-Semitic statements in the media are a reaction to Israel’s policy toward Palestinians and do not reflect historical anti-Semitism. Human rights groups cite persistent anti-Semitism in the education system, which increasingly has been under the influence of Islamist extremists.

The small remnant of Egypt’s Jewish community, now consisting of only about 50 people, owns communal property and finances required maintenance largely through private donations. In 2010, Egyptian authorities restored the Maimonides synagogue in Cairo, named after a 12th century rabbinic scholar.
In January 2013, President Morsi’s 2010 anti-Semitic comments came to light. He had urged Egyptians to “nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists and in another interview referred to Jews as the descendants of “apes and pigs.” When confronted on these comments during USCIRF’s our visit in February, Egyptian officials with whom we met tried to divert the discussion to attacks on the state of Israel.

Constitutional Process
Thus far, in the post-Morsi era, Egypt’s 50-member constitution committee recently completed its work and transmitted a final draft to the Egyptian interim president, Adly Mansour. The constitution is expected to be put to a referendum in January. An initial review of the draft shows some positive changes from the suspended 2012 constitution that could bode well for religious freedom, although how the provisions are interpreted and implemented remains to be seen and will be crucial.

Article 64 of the new draft provides that “freedom of belief is absolute,” Article 65 broadly guarantees freedom of thought and opinion, and Article 53 prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion among other grounds. Like the Morsi-era constitution, however, Article 64 limits the freedom to practice religious rituals and establish places of worship to the three “divine” religions, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This would mean that the Baha’i community, for example, would not be able to exercise their own rites and establish their own places of worship.
Based on international human rights standards, religious freedom applies without exception to every person, and it encompasses more than just rituals and worship. It includes the right to manifest one’s own faith or beliefs, individually or in community, in public or in private, through worship, teaching, practice, and observance. It also includes the right to change one’s religion or to try to convince others to do likewise. International law specifies the narrow circumstances under which religious freedom can be restricted.

In a positive development, the new draft removed a provision of the 2012 constitution that narrowly defined Islamic Shari’ah. The draft continues to provide that Islamic Shari’ah “principles” are the “principal” source of legislation (as has been the case since 1971), but it removed a Morsi-era provision potentially giving a religious body, Al Azhar scholars, a consultative role in reviewing legislation, and returned that function to the Supreme Constitutional Court.
The new draft also does not include the Morsi-era constitution’s blasphemy ban (a provision stating that “insult or abuse of all religious messengers and prophets shall be prohibited). However, the new Article 53 requires that “incitement to hate” must be punishable by law. If this undefined phrase is interpreted to prohibit speech that insults religious beliefs, symbols, or figures, it would in effect be another constitutional blasphemy ban. This would flatly contradict the freedoms of belief, thought, and opinion.

Finally, another positive addition is Article 235, which requires the new parliament to pass a law governing the building and renovating of churches, a longstanding limitation on Christians and a flash point for sectarian violence targeting the Coptic community.

Recommendations
Due to Egypt’s failure to protect the religious freedom of Copts and other religious minorities, its continued domestic and international support for blasphemy and religious defamation laws, its pursuit of blasphemy cases against its own citizens, from Copts to disfavored Muslims, and its repeated failure to bring their sectarian attackers to justice, USCIRF recommended for three consecutive years (2011-2013) that the United States designate Egypt a country of particular concern, or CPC, marking it as among the world’s worst religious freedom abusers. USCIRF is currently evaluating recent developments in advance of its 2014 determinations.
Washington also must urge repeal of Egypt’s contempt-of-religion and related laws in the penal code, as well as discriminatory decrees against religious minorities, such as lifting bans on Baha’is and Jehovah’s Witnesses, removing religion from official identity documents, and passing a unified law for the construction and repair of places of worship.

In response to the continued violence against Copts and other religious minorities, the United States should press Egypt to prosecute government-funded clerics, government officials, and others who incite violence, while disciplining government-funded clerics who preach hatred. Washington also must urge Cairo to counter the violence by bringing the violent to justice, thus breaking the climate of impunity.

Finally, the United States government should refuse to certify the disbursement of the appropriated $1.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to the Egyptian military until the Egyptian government demonstrates that it is using some of the FMF funds to implement policies that protect freedom of religion and related rights in Egypt. Once the Egyptian government so demonstrates, it should be urged to ensure that its police assess security needs and develop and implement a comprehensive and effective plan for dedicated police protection for religious minority communities and their places of worship, particularly Coptic Christians, Sufi and Shi’a Muslims, and Jews. Congress should require the U.S. State Department to report every 90 days on the Egyptian government’s progress on these and related recommendations.

Conclusion
In a very real way, the treatment of Egypt’s religious minority communities is a barometer of the country’s well-being. If Egypt’s revolution is to succeed, nothing is more important than ensuring that Egypt’s government recognize that full freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental human right that should be honored and respected, and commit itself to protecting the right of every Egyptian, regardless of background or belief, to exercise this freedom in peace and without fear of reprisal. For the sake of stability and security, and because of Egypt’s international human rights commitments, the United States government should urge Egypt to choose this pathway to democracy and freedom.

 

11/14/2017: I join FBN’s Making Money discussing the lottery system for immigration and how it’s un-American and must be reformed.