Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important and most timely motion. In advance I thank all the other speakers who will follow my contribution here today. I also thank my coalition parliamentary colleagues who have supported me in this motion.

Egypt is currently experiencing a period of unprecedented transition, the success of which hinges on full respect for the rule of law and compliance with international human rights standards, including freedom of religion. However, while the world has been preoccupied with the so-called 'Arab Spring' little, if any, attention has been paid to the increased persecution of Christians and religious intolerance in the Muslim Middle East.

Coptic Christians are the descendants of the original inhabitants of Egypt. They descend from the pharaohs, who built the classic Egyptian civilization along the Nile Valley in cities such as Luxor, and the builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which remained the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years. The Copts have a long and proud history as Christians, which dates back to the fourth century. In the year 641 AD, when the Arab Muslims invaded Egypt, Christianity was the majority religion in Roman Egypt. Despite the political upheaval following the invasion, Egypt remained a mainly Christian land until the end of 12th century.

Since becoming a minority, Christians in Egypt have experienced centuries of discrimination. However, the position of the Copts did improve in the early 19th century. During this liberal period Copts participated in the Egyptian national movement for independence and occupied many influential positions in government and society. Although they represented about 10 to 20 per cent of the population, they were so economically prosperous that they held more than 50 per cent of the nation's wealth.

However, following the 1952 coup d'etat, led by Nasser, the conditions of the Copts have slowly deteriorated. A prejudicial legal framework has created a permissive environment that allows Egyptian officials to freely discriminate against Christians with impunity. Christian religious courts were closed and the regime confiscated land and church properties. Permits to construct new churches were delayed. The Nasser government also adopted socialist policies, which further adversely affected the Copts, as they mainly depended on private business for their livelihood.

The economic pressures and resurgent discrimination under Nasser led many Copts to start migrating to countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. Today there are about four million Copts living outside Egypt, including an estimated 100,000 Coptic Christians in Australia, who have successfully assimilated into our nation and who have made an invaluable contribution to our economic prosperity.

However, today, as a religious minority the Copts are subject to ongoing and significant discrimination in modern Egypt and are the target of attacks by militant Islamic extremist groups. The following are just a few examples of the recent attacks on the Christian minority in Egypt. On 6 January 2010, in the town of Nag Hammadi, three men sprayed automatic gunfire on Coptic churchgoers leaving a midnight mass. Seven people were killed and several others were injured.

On 1 January 2011, a bomb detonated in front of a Coptic church, the Two Saints Church, in Alexandria, where a New Year's prayer service was being held. Twenty-three people died as a result of the attack, all of them Coptic Christians, and 97 more people were injured. This was the deadliest act of violence against Egypt's Christian minority in more than a decade, since a massacre in 2000 left 21 Copts dead.

On 11 January, 2011 an off-duty police officer opened fire in a train in Minya province, killing one Christian and injuring five others. In early March this year 13 people were killed and nearly 150 wounded in clashes in Cairo that erupted during large-scale demonstrations by Christians protesting the destruction of a church in the provincial town of Sol. The 2011 report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom makes sobering reading. The commission is an independent bipartisan US federal government commission. Its commissioners are appointed by President Obama and the leadership of both political parties in the House of Representatives and the US Senate. Its report notes:

The Egyptian government engaged in and tolerated religious freedom violations before and after President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 11, 2011.

Serious problems of discrimination, intolerance and other human rights violations against members of religious minorities, as well as disfavoured Muslims, remain widespread in Egypt. Violence targeting Coptic Orthodox Christians remained high during the reporting period.

This high level of violence and the failure to convict those responsible—including two of the three alleged perpetrators of the 2010 Nag Hammadi attack—continued to foster a climate of impunity, making further violence more likely.

The Egyptian government has failed to protect religious minorities, particularly Coptic Christians, from violent attacks, including during the transitional period when minority communities are increasingly vulnerable.

Since February 11, military and security forces reportedly have used excessive force and live ammunition targeting of Christian places of worship and Christian demonstrators.

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In addition, the government has not responded adequately to combat widespread virulent anti-Semitism in the government-controlled media.

For the first time the commission has recommended that Egypt be designated as a country of particular concern for its systematic ongoing egregious violations of religious freedom. In addition to violence, Christians face official and societal discrimination in Egypt.

Although the Egyptian government officials may claim that there is no law or policy that prevents Christians from holding senior positions, the Coptic community faces de facto discrimination in appointments to high-level government and military posts. Despite representing 10 per cent of the population, there are only a handful of Christians in the upper ranks of the security forces and the armed forces. There is just one Christian governor out of 28 and one elected member of parliament out of the 454 seats. There are no known university presidents or deans and very few legislators or judges. Under Egyptian law Muslim men can marry Christian women but Muslim women are prohibited from marrying Christian men. For all Christian groups government permission is required to build a new church or even to repair an existing one. The approval process for church construction is time-consuming and inflexible. The majority of applications made more than five years ago have yet to receive a response. Egypt continues to have a number of repressive policies and practices that violate freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief.

Although the attacks against the Copts were carried out largely with impunity under the indifferent Mubarak regime, the recent announcement that the Muslim Brotherhood movement would now seek the imposition of Islamic law in Egypt is sending shock waves through the Coptic community both in Egypt and worldwide. There is a real danger of the Arab spring falling into a dark Islamic winter.

Religious intolerance and extremism are incubators of violence. If radicals grow in influence, they might destroy any new democratic system that takes root, as democracy does not mean that 50 per cent plus one of the electorate has absolute rule over the rest. The true test of any democracy is how it treats its minorities. However, there are some hopeful signs. After a popular uprising that toppled Mubarak in February this year, ending 30 years of autocratic rule, the press in Egypt is now more free and vigorous, and Egypt will start parliamentary elections on 21 November. It still could work out. A real democracy in Egypt with some measure of tolerance of personal liberty may yet still emerge. However, there can be no real freedom for Egypt, there can be no real stability and there can be no economic growth lifting millions of Egyptians out of poverty and into prosperity unless there is full religious freedom in Egypt, not only for the Coptic minority but for all other moderate voices. Now is not the time for silence or appeasement by the international community, for as the Copts go so ultimately may go the entire the Middle East. If a Christian minority cannot live within a country which has a Muslin majority population without persecution or institutionalised discrimination, the future looks bleak. Although a number of world leaders, including President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI have expressed serious concern about the dramatic attacks against the Coptic Christian community, the current Australian government has so far been silent. This motion gives this parliament an opportunity to end its silence. Finally, I would like to thank leading members of the Coptic community in Australia, including Father Tadros Simon, Father Antonis Kaldas, and Father Mathew Attia. I commend this motion to the House and I trust it will have the support of all its members.

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