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MINORITY AT RISK: COPTIC CHRISTIANS IN

EGYPT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND 

COOPERATION IN EUROPE

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 22, 2011

Printed for the use of the

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

[CSCE 112–1–8]

(

Available via http://www.csce.gov 

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

HOUSE SENATE

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,

Chairman 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida 

LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER,

New York 

MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland,

Co-Chairman 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

ROBERT F. WICKER, Mississippi 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

MICHAEL H. POSNER, Department of State 

MICHAEL C. CAMUN ̃ EZ, Department of Commerce 

ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, Department of Defense 

(II) 

MINORITY AT RISK: COPTIC CHRISTIANS IN 

EGYPT 

JULY 22, 2011

COMMISSIONERS 

Page 

Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe .............................................. 1

Hon. Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security 

and Cooperation in Europe ..................................................... 7

Hon. Joseph R. Pitts, Commissioner, Commission on Security 

and Cooperation in Europe ..................................................... 8

MEMBERS 

Hon. Frank Wolf (R–10) a Member in Congress from the 

State of Virginia ...................................................................... 27

Hon. Trent Franks (R–8) a Member in Congress from the 

State of Arizona ....................................................................... 27

Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R–27) a Member in Congress 

from the State of Florida ........................................................ 33

Hon. Renee L. Ellmers (R–2) a Member in Congress from 

the State of North Carolina .................................................... 35

WITNESSES 

Caroline Doss, Vice President, Coptic Solidarity ...................... 4

Michele A. Clark, Adjunct Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University .......... 9

Jean Maher, President, French Office, Egyptian Union for 

Human Rights Organization ................................................... 14

APPENDICES 

Prepared statement of Caroline Doss ........................................ 44

Prepared statement of Michele A. Clark ................................... 51

Prepared statement of Jean Maher ........................................... 58

Material submitted for the hearing record by the Egyptian 

Human Rights NGOs Papyrus ............................................... 62

(III) 

(1)

MINORITY AT RISK: COPTIC CHRISTIANS IN 

EGYPT 

July 22, 2011

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

WASHINGTON, DC

The hearing was held at 9:30 a.m. in room 210, Cannon House 

Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Christopher H. Smith, 

Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 

presiding. 

Commissioners present: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Steve 

Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe; and Joseph R. Pitts, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

Witnesses present: Caroline Doss, Vice President, Coptic Solidarity; Michele A. Clark, Adjunct Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, the George Washington University; Jean Maher, 

President, French Office, Egyptian Union for Human Rights Organization; Hon. Frank Wolf, a Member in Congress from the State 

of Virginia; Hon. Trent Franks, a Member in Congress from the 

State of Arizona; Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Member in Congress 

from the State of Florida; and Hon. Renee L. Ellmers, a Member 

in Congress from the State of North Carolina. 

HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. SMITH. The Commission will come to order, and I want to 

welcome our very distinguished panel to this Commission hearing 

focusing on a minority at risk, Coptic Christians in Egypt. And just 

for the C–SPAN audience, I would just point out that the Helsinki 

Commission was formed immediately after the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in the mid-1970s, a comprehensive human rights 

convention that had three major baskets: one dealing with security, 

another with trade and the one that we have emphasized very, 

very strongly over these last several decades, the human rights 

basket. 

The Helsinki Commission is made up of nine House Members, 

nine Members of the U.S. Senate and three members of the executive branch, all Assistant Secretaries, very high level, including the 

Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Labor and Human 

Rights. I’ve been on the Commission since 1982, and my—three in 

my second term. I’ve actually Chaired the Commission or CoChaired it from ’95 to 2006, and served as Ranking Member and 

2

now am back as Chairman, and Senator Cardin serves as CoChairman from the Senate side. 

So again, welcome to this Commission hearing. This morning 

we’re going to focus on the question of what is happening to the 

Coptic Christians in Egypt and what will happen to them in the 

new country that is emerging from the revolution this spring. 

Early signs are discouraging. There has been an escalation in violence against Copts, which has included the killing of dozens of 

Coptic individuals, fire bombings of churches and the destruction 

of at least three churches. Of course, Coptic Christians have long 

been marginalized, disadvantaged and faced harsh discrimination, 

persecution, and even violent attacks, both by the Egyptian Government and by Muslim extremists in Egypt where they constitute 

roughly 8 percent of the population of about 82 million people. The 

plight of Copts has been well-documented, including by the State 

Department’s International Religious Freedom reports and its 

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and by the reports of 

the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The most 

recent International Religious Freedom report said that the Egyptian Government’s respect for this fundamental human right is 

quote, ‘‘poor.’’ Given developments in Egypt, we have to be deeply 

concerned about what the next report will say and, more importantly, what has truly happened or is happening on the ground. 

The other focus of this hearing will be the widespread and credible allegations that the Egyptian Coptic women and girls are subjected to abduction, forced conversion to Islam and forced marriage 

to Muslims. They appear to be targeted with deceptive and abusive 

practices, which often include violence and that separate them forever, against their will, from their families. We’ve heard very disturbing reports, and part of the reason for this hearing is to begin 

to open up and find out what is truly going on with regards to this 

terrible situation. 

I would note parenthetically that I am the prime sponsor and author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, and one of 

the hallmarks of that legislation is to bring light and policy, including sanctions, against countries that engage either internally or 

across boundaries in any kind of commodification of women, especially the selling of individuals into sexual trafficking situations, 

modern-day slavery as we call it. I would also point out that, over 

the years, many of us on the Foreign Relations Committee and 

those not on it who are concerned about this, routinely raised the 

issue of the Coptic Christians and their persecution, especially with 

President Mubarak, and time and again, we had lists. I would give 

him lists, both in Cairo and in Washington, when he would visit, 

and ask that individuals who have been hurt or arrested falsely or/

and under false charges be shown relief. And while it was bad 

under Mubarak, the big concern now, the big open question is, is 

it evolving in the wrong direction and actually worsening? 

I’d like to say to the Egyptian Government today, in my opinion 

and in the opinion of many of us who follow human rights closely, 

Egypt has failed to initiate credible investigations into the cases of 

the fire bombings and the abducted women and many of these 

other issues as well as killing of individuals. And that does perhaps 

have the intended consequence of creating a climate of impunity for 

3

the perpetrators. If there is no penalty for this terrible abuse and 

violence, it only encourages more violence. I’d like to say at the outset that this is only the first hearing on the persecution of the 

Copts—or rather the second; there was one in January chaired by 

my good friend and colleague, Mr. Wolf, who did it under the auspices of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. We will hold 

hearings on Copts and other minority religions in the Middle East. 

But of course the revolution against Mubarak has created a new 

situation, which calls for a new hearing. Things have changed dramatically on the ground. And I’d like to bring a special focus to the 

issue of the abduction of Coptic women and girls. If we need to, we 

will have—and we will—have followup hearings later this year 

until the Egyptian Government gets the message. This is an issue 

that calls for action. In April 2010, I wrote to the State Department, together with 15 other Members, urging further investigation and reporting on the exploitation of Coptic women. This 

spring, Frank Wolf introduced legislation that would create a special envoy to promote freedom of religious minorities in the Middle 

East and South Central Asia. That bill is likely to be on the floor 

this coming Monday. Hopefully it’ll pass, hopefully the Senate will 

take it up quickly, and get down to the president to have a point 

person reaching out and working—with direct access to the President, to work on the worsening plight of Christians in the Middle 

East. 

Egypt is a major recipient, as we all know, of U.S. foreign aid, 

and it is a Mediterranean Partner for Co-Operation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. I do hope its government is paying close attention today and that it chooses the 

path of reform and religious freedom. If it doesn’t, we should restructure our aid so as to promote religious freedom much more 

vigorously and carefully consider designating Egypt as a country of 

particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act 

of 1998. 

And I would note parenthetically that the U.S. Commission for 

International Religious Freedom has already made that recommendation. So there is a—this is something that has to be taken 

very seriously, and it has to be done right now. 

Finally, yesterday, we marked up the reauthorization of the Foreign Relations Act, which is the State Department and some foreign aid in the Foreign Affairs Committee. I offered an amendment 

which we will give out and make a part of the record here today—

yesterday—that brings attention to all of these issues concerning 

Coptic Christians: from the fire bombings to the desecration of 

churches and, of course, the destruction of churches and to this 

under-focused-upon issue of young Coptic girls being abducted and 

forced into Islam and then given over as brides. It’s a very disturbing and, I think, an outrageous situation, and we need to do 

more, and this hearing marks a pivotal moment at least for, I 

think, what the Congress will do—as did yesterday. 

I would note parenthetically that the amendment passed unanimously by both Republicans and Democrats on the committee and 

those who spoke in favor of it, including Howard Berman, the 

Ranking Member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Chairwoman of the 

Committee and other members, all were on the same page—we 

4

need to speak out robustly as does the administration on behalf of 

Coptic Christians. 

I would like to now welcome our distinguished witnesses to this 

hearing today, beginning first with Caroline Doss, who’s an attorney and Vice President of Coptic Solidarity, a group dedicated to 

upholding the human rights of Egyptian Copts, and she has spoken 

widely on issues affecting minorities in Egypt. Her full resume will 

be made a part of the record; she has many, many accomplishments, as do our other witnesses today. And then we’ll hear Jean 

Maher, who’s the President of the French office of the Egyptian 

Union for Human Rights Organizations and represents several 

Coptic organizations in France. He has been engaged in promoting 

Coptic rights in France and in wider Europe. And then third, we’ll 

hear from Michele Clark, who’s an adjunct professor at the Elliott 

School of International Affairs at George Washington University 

and co-author of the 2009 report, ‘‘The Disappearance, Forced Conversions and Forced Marriages of Coptic Christian Women in 

Egypt.’’ She is currently working on a new investigation into abduction, forced conversion and marriage, and is known to the Commission for her extraordinarily fine work in combating human trafficking. 

I’d like to now turn to Caroline Doss, and ask all of our distinguished witnesses to come to the witness table. [Applause.] 

CAROLINE DOSS, VICE PRESIDENT, COPTIC SOLIDARITY 

Ms. DOSS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of 

Congress and Commissioners, thank you for holding this important 

hearing and for the opportunity to testify and focus on the issues 

related to the Christian minority in Egypt, particularly as many of 

these appear to be ignored in current policy considerations. 

There are a number of issue—issues minorities have faced in 

Egypt over the years, including violent attacks, discrimination in 

the workplace and in society at large, inequality under the law, 

lack of justice against those who perpetuate attacks, hate speech 

in the media, and the long-term issues related to peacefully practicing one’s faith and worshipping freely. 

Numerous media articles and reports document the discrimination and violence against Christians and other minorities under the 

Mubarak regime. There was great hope among minorities, especially as the Egyptian people stood side by side in Tahrir Square, 

calling for Mubarak to leave, that a post-Mubarak Egypt would 

provide more freedom and peace for minorities. Tragically that has 

not occurred. Instead, there is a—there is clear evidence of an increasing pattern and practice by Commission and omission, of government-sanctioned persecution of Copts. 

Sadly we have seen many violent attacks against Coptic Christians in the last few months of the post the Mubarak regime. There 

has been clear evidence of a pattern and practice. We can start 

with the military. There have been two very well-documented attacks where the military openly attacked Coptic monasteries. 

Those attacks can actually be viewed online. The military opened 

fire on unarmed monks and, if you actually go online and look at 

the videos, which we provided links for, you can see these monks 

5

running for cover as the military is opening fire with heavy machinery on the monks. 

Also we see persecution by government officials, specifically the 

Governor of el-Minya. In February, he demolished 10 Coptic homes 

because the owners of those homes refused to contribute 1⁄5 of their 

property to build a mosque. That same Governor attempted to demolish a Coptic services home for the handicapped. Luckily, Coptic 

protestors were able to block him from doing so. 

Very disturbing. Five churches have been attacked since Mubarak has stepped down, and what is very scary about those attacks 

is that they occurred out in the open while the military stood by 

and watched. We have also attached the YouTube links where you 

can actually watch these attacks go on, with the military standing 

in the background, and what’s very disturbing—one common thing 

you see in all of these attacks is the crowds in unison chanting 

‘‘Allah hu Akbar,’’ God is great, as the attacks go on. Watch them 

for yourself, and you’ll see in horror as the attacks go on, they actually chant ‘‘Allah hu Akbar,’’ God is great. 

Now what’s also very scary and sad is that some of the footage 

of those attacks is so clear that you can actually see the people who 

are participating in the attacks and identify them. One of the 

YouTube links takes it frame by frame and puts circles around the 

attackers. We’ve printed out the name and address of one of those 

attackers and who he’s related to in the government. Has he been 

arrested? No, he hasn’t. We have another printout of another individual who, as the church was burning clearly said—a Salafi—we 

are not men if we do not burn all the churches in Imbaba, a clear, 

crystal clear picture of this man. Has he been arrested? No, he 

hasn’t. 

The church in Ain Shams that was most recently attacked in 

May, May 14th to be specific, in Cairo, I can say there were three 

convictions, and each of the three received 5-year prison sentence, 

two for possession of a pistol and one for possession of a pocket 

knife. Here’s the disturbing thing: Those three individuals were all 

Christians. 

Within 2 weeks, those individuals were arrested and convicted 

and handed very harsh sentences of 5 years because they were 

Christians and because they possessed weapons and defended their 

churches. How is that in comparison to the situation as a whole 

when you look at it? No Muslim perpetrators were arrested at all. 

Instead, the Christians, who were defending their churches, were 

the ones who were arrested. What does that tell us? The message 

is you can attack, you can threaten, you can watch the attack, you 

can participate in it, you can put it on YouTube, you can advertise 

it, but you can’t defend against the attack because if you do, the 

government will make sure that they harshly and swiftly respond 

to anyone who dares defend against an attack. What does that say 

to this minority? Sit back and take it. And if you think you’re not 

going to, we’ll show you. 

The torture and the impunity of the former state security officials—some have been sent home, and some have just been simply 

relocated in different parts of the government. Nobody has ever 

held these people accountable for what they have done to Egyptian 

citizens. There is a clear record, and State Department reports 

6

spell it out: torture, rape, burnings of people who want to convert 

from Islam to Christianity. Have any of them been brought to justice? Absolutely not. They have not. As a person who deals with 

people who first immigrate to the United States, I can tell you, I 

have seen scars of people who were tortured in state security. 

Most recently, a woman showed me her scars, her burn marks 

on her arms and on her inner thighs. They burned her with cigars 

because they wanted to know and insisted on knowing who was the 

priest who baptized you and what church did they baptize you in? 

She wouldn’t give his name, so the torture went on for 3 days. She 

knows the name of her abuser because he made—he made sure he 

introduced himself before they started the torture. 

Another man who described his torture in state security, a convert from Islam to Christianity—and he gave me the location of 

where he was tortured and again the name of the person who tortured him, because he also introduced himself. He described how 

they removed his clothing, tied him down and put a metal chair between his legs and tied wires around his genitals and to his toes 

and then turned on the electricity. 

These people—we know their names. But have any of them been 

brought to justice? No. They’ve just been placed in different parts 

of the government. The same people will practice the same torture 

and the same tactics because they—no one has ever said anything 

to them. They haven’t been held accountable. There is a clear 

record of a pattern and practice of abuse and a pattern and practice of impunity. Put those together and what do we get? 

Another issue, which my colleagues will expand more on later is 

the forced conversion and the kidnapping of Coptic girls. Again, 

dealing with people who come to—who have been coming to the 

United States in the last few months, I’ve heard accounts of what 

people actually went through during the time that they were 

threatening—there better be no one in the street without a veil. It 

was actually a particular Tuesday in the month of March, where 

Salafis made sure that they very well advertised that if a woman 

went into the street without the veil, she would be punished. 

As one woman and her husband went on to tell me, while their 

8 year old child was in the room, her son begged and cried that 

day: Mom, don’t leave; you might die. She wanted to go and wish 

her mother a happy Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is in the month 

of March in Egypt. And her son cried and begged, don’t leave; you 

might get killed. 

Another story I heard from another client—he actually made his 

wife wear the veil. He was scared for her. He said, just put it on, 

we don’t want any trouble. They put it on, but despite that, they 

were still actually attacked. And while the attack was going on, the 

wife, fearing for her life, ran, tripped and 2 days later suffered a 

miscarriage. She was 18 weeks pregnant at the time. 

The veil is an issue that is deeply disturbing and brings to mind 

the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan and their attacks against 

non-veiled women. 

We make the following recommendations for the Egyptian Government, the U.S. Government and the international community. 

We support and strongly urge the passage of H.R. 440 and S. 1245, 

which provide for the appointment of a special envoy for minorities 

7

in the Middle East. We also strongly urge the administration to appoint someone to that position who is highly qualified and has the 

stature needed to ensure that issues related to minorities are included at the highest level of the U.S. Government, particularly 

during this historic transition in Egypt. We also call for the prosecution of the perpetrators of these crimes. Until these people are 

brought to justice, Egypt will never see justice or unity. These people need to be held accountable. And the message that you can 

burn a church in public and have a party afterwards, chanting 

‘‘Allah hu Akbar,’’ it is not acceptable. That message needs to be 

sent to the people of Egypt and to the international community. 

Also, we ask that the U.S. Government and the international 

community press the Egyptian Government to ensure that its commitments to international human rights norms are upheld in the 

foundational sections of the constitution and are not undermined 

by any subsequent articles or passages. 

And last, we ask that while we welcome the efforts to help Egypt 

and its—in its current economic situation, we believe that unconditional financial aid would be a strategic error. Aid should be linked 

to Egypt’s human rights record in terms of constitutional stipulations, laws and practices over the short- and medium-terms. We 

urge the U.S. Government, European governments and others in 

the international community providing financial aid to Egypt to tie 

that aid to Egypt’s upholding and protecting fundamental human 

rights norms now and in any new constitution. 

Mr. Chairman, I again thank you for the opportunity to raise 

these concerns today. The people of Egypt, particularly the minorities, long for a society in which they are free to peacefully practice 

their faith and to live their lives without fear. Muslims, Christians 

and other minorities all deserve a stable, peaceful and free society. 

It is at this time in Egypt’s history that real change is possible, but 

I fear that change will not happen unless there is an exponential 

increase in pressure, both from inside, and outside, of Egypt. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Doss, thank you very much [applause] for your 

passionate and very incisive testimony. I think for many Members 

of Congress, this will be an eye-opening hearing. And I do believe 

because C–SPAN is here, for many Americans, they will be learning for the first time just how discriminatory and how violent the 

plight has been for Coptic Christians and especially this—the veil 

being lifted off the abduction of young girls and women to be sold 

into what is, without a doubt, modern-day slavery. They are forced 

into marriages, stolen from their families. And we will hear—our 

next two witnesses will bring, I do believe, even more light on that. 

But before going to them, I’d like to yield to Commissioner Cohen 

for any comments he might have and then Commissioner Joe Pitts. 

HON. STEVE COHEN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. Just very briefly—thank you, Mr. Chairman—I just want to express my appreciation for the witnesses and 

for all the people here who are concerned about these issues. I’m, 

I think, the newest member of this Commission. Chairman Smith 

has a long history and is greatly appreciated for the work that he 

8

puts into this. This isn’t one of those Commissions and appointments through the Congress where you get a lot of contributions, 

you know, and PAC support and all those things. This is something 

which you do because you care about human beings. And so I appreciate the Chairman and the other members who are here and 

the opportunity to participate here. 

You know, it’s stunning, your testimony about the discrimination 

against Coptics. And I’ve read about—I was in Cairo about a 

month ago. And I had read about the issues that existed in Egypt. 

I also had read that when the—our American newscaster, the female, was raped, that the screams were not necessarily ‘‘God is 

great,’’ but suggestions that she was Israeli; and so it was truly 

good that she was being raped. 

The situation is not good. I had an email today, and I don’t know 

what—how valid it is. I’m sending it to the Commission for their 

opportunity to vet it. But it suggested there’s been an increase in 

anti-Semitic actions in France and that there’s been many actions 

against synagogues and Jewish places of assemblage and Jewish 

people in France. It’s just distressing that religion is causing so 

much anger and separation and hate rather than the love that is 

supposed to encourage us all to exchange and to value. 

And so, through this Commission, I hope we can do some good 

in shedding light on the problems and hopefully get some of the 

clergy people to spread a little love rather than a little hate. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Cohen, thank you so very much. 

Commissioner Pitts. 

HON. JOSEPH R. PITTS, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the opening statement? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. PITTS. The Republic of Egypt, an OSCE Mediterranean Partner for Co-operation, has undergone a dramatic revolution rooted 

in the inevitable need for freedom and democracy that many OSCE 

members faced two decades ago during the fall of the Soviet Union. 

As we continue to hold hearings at this Commission, we see many 

of those states still struggling to uphold democracy and human 

rights for all their people. 

However, discrimination against Egypt’s Coptic population long 

preceded the Arab Spring. Indeed, the Coptic community was instrumental in the recent democratic uprising that led to the end of 

Hosni Mubarak’s rule. But attacks against the Copts are ongoing, 

and the impunity present under Mubarak has not ended with his 

removal, but observed with a lack of credible investigations into 

these attacks by the state. Many have concluded that the current 

Egyptian Government may offer a climate for Coptic Christians 

that is worse than the one facilitated by former President Mubarak. 

It is my fear that we are seeing Egypt trade one form of oppression for another, trading a dictatorship for mob rule or tyranny of 

the majority. The government must understand that it has a vested 

9

interest in the equal protection of Christians and Muslims, which 

will ensure the common good of all Egyptians. 

During my tenure in Congress, I’ve raised numerous issues with 

the government of Egypt, including issues ranging from appreciation for working together on issues of importance to both of our nations such as defense and terrorism, to concerns about widespread 

torture in prisons and discrimination against and even outright 

persecution of religious minorities and the lack of freedom to hold 

free, fair and transparent elections. 

In March of this year, I sent a letter, along with other Members 

of Congress, to the head of the transitional government, Field Marshal Tantawi, urging him to intervene against the attacks on the 

Coptic church, stressing that it only is with the strong action 

against those seeking to undermine the values of democracy, transparency and freedom in Egypt that the country will reach its potential and maintain its strength and stability. Although I never received a response from the government, I am hopeful that I can 

find answers to my questions in today’s hearing with the help of 

our panelists, find courses of action that will lead to a truly democratic Egypt. 

I’m disturbed by the ongoing reports of abuse against this ancient minority in Egypt and, in particular, reports of abuses toward 

women under the new regime. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing 

today. I look forward to finding ways the United States and the 

OSCE can help facilitate policies to aid Egypt during this crucial 

time in its history. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Commissioner Pitts. I would 

just note parenthetically that Congressman Joe Pitts for years has 

spoken out on the floor, in committee, and in Egypt about the 

plight of Coptic Christians and has been tenacious in promoting religious freedom in general. But for Coptic Christians, no one has 

done more in the U.S. House of Representatives. So I do thank 

him. And Commissioner Cohen, thank you for your steadfast support for human rights and for religious freedom as well. 

We will now go to our next witness, Michele Clark. And I would 

just note that Michele Clark was the Director—and this is how we 

worked very closely on human trafficking—of the Anti-Trafficking 

Assistance Unit at the Organization for Security Cooperation in 

Europe, where she assisted all 56 countries of the OSCE—which is 

virtually all of Europe, the United States, and Canada—with meeting their commitments to combating this modern-day slavery. She 

is also the author of a comprehensive report, which without objection we’ll make a part of the record, a 41-page report called ‘‘The 

Disappearance, Forced Conversions and Forced Marriages of Coptic 

Christian Women in Egypt.’’

So, Ms. Clark, the floor is yours. 

MICHELE A. CLARK, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, ELLIOTT SCHOOL 

OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON 

UNIVERSITY 

Ms. CLARK. Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, it’s 

an honor to testify before the Helsinki Commission today. Thank 

10

you for your gracious invitation, and thank you for including the 

report in the permanent record. 

Mr. Chairman, I’m here today to speak about the disappearance, 

forced conversions and forced marriages of Coptic women in Egypt. 

Thank you for calling this hearing. Your steadfast, strong voice 

over the past decade and then some in defense of vulnerable 

women and children remains an inspiration. I’d just also like to call 

to your attention that the weather has agreed to turn up the heat 

on this matter in support of your initiative. [Laughter.] 

The topic is timely, as Egypt is moving into a new phase of government, where the rights of all citizens are equally valued and 

represented. This includes—should include the rights of religious 

minorities and of women. While I’ve provided detailed written testimony to the Commission for the record, I’d like to summarize some 

of the main points here in my oral presentation. 

As context, in 2007, the State Department Country Reports on 

Human Rights Practice referenced the issue that—under discussion 

and claimed while there were no reports of forced religious conversion carried out by the government, there continued to be unsubstantiated reports. Reports were disputed. Reports included allegations and denials. Extremely difficult to determine the accuracy—

extremely difficult to determine whether compulsion was used, and 

cases almost never used—appeared in the local media. In 2008, the 

Report on International Religious Freedom, in its Egypt country report, uses almost the same language: Reports of forced conversion, 

reports are disputed, inflammatory allegations and categorical denials, extremely difficult to determine. And finally, in 2010, the 

Trafficking in Persons Report, published by the U.S. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking indicated that an NGO released a report about alleged forced marriages of Coptic Christian women, including an allegation of forced prostitution, although the allegations have not been confirmed. 

Mr. Chairman, I’m here to confirm these allegations. Mr. Chairman, I’m here to attest that these claims should not be disputed. 

I’m here to say that categorical denials of kidnappings, rapes, 

forced marriages and forced conversion are an affront to the dignity 

of Egyptian Coptic women. I know this. Why? Because I have spoken to women who’ve been traumatized after an ‘‘alleged’’ kidnapping; who will suffer a lifetime of infertility due to an ‘‘alleged’’ 

rape, who move from home to home in constant fear of reprisal by 

‘‘alleged’’ perpetrators and who are denied their Christian identities 

because of an ‘‘alleged’’ conversion. 

In 2009, I traveled to Egypt on behalf of Christian Solidarity 

International and the Coptic Foundation for Human Rights. Together with Nadia Ghaly, a spirited human rights activist, to gather evidence to vindicate the claims of these women. We spoke to 

over 50 women. We met their families. We sat with parish priests 

who regularly witness this occurrence within their congregation 

and who have painstakingly compiled binders five feet in height of 

evidence documenting each tragic story. We reviewed legal documents filed by courageous human-rights lawyers who were working 

to restore their original Christian identity to these women, and we 

drank tea in shelters where women returning from lives of ‘‘alVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
11

leged’’ abuse and in some cases forced prostitution were sequestered. 

Mr. Chairman, under regular human rights, in normal humanrights circumstances, such reporting eliminates the use of the word 

‘‘allegation.’’ I’m just wondering why the word ‘‘allegation’’ persists 

now that we have been able to document such reports. 

Let me summarize some of our specific findings. First, we can 

substantiate that Christian women are in fact lured into marriages 

with Muslim men and subsequently converted to Islam. These marriages often take place under duress and frequently include abductions, physical abuse, rape. Victims remain reluctant to press 

charges against their perpetrators for fear of reprisal. When 

charges have been filed, there is no evidence. We have not been 

able to find evidence of a single conviction against a perpetrator. 

Let me give you an example. A young woman—we’ll refer to her 

as ‘‘H’’—was befriended by a Muslim girl. She trusted her friend 

and spent time at her home. One day in her friend’s absence, the 

brother raped her. Ashamed to tell her own family, she remained 

with this man’s family, during which time the mother persuaded 

her to convert to Islam and marry the son. She was subsequently 

locked into her apartment every day when her husband left for 

work and allowed to leave only with her in-laws. She was denied 

access to the telephone, made to cover herself when she left the 

house and was frequently beaten. 

Our second conclusion is that authorities do not acknowledge 

that criminal action has taken place. Instead, young women are 

presumed to be willing participants in their faith. This is not true. 

Mr. Smith, you’ve been in the anti-trafficking arena long enough to 

understand that one of the chief arguments leveled against victims 

of trafficking is that somehow they went along with the promises. 

Anti-trafficking experts frequently—or increasingly recognize two 

important facts. One is that the purposes of trafficking can include 

forced marriage. This has been documented in the U.S. Government’s TIP Report. 

Furthermore, the anti-trafficking community recognizes that one 

form of recruitment into trafficking takes the form of seduction. In 

the Netherlands, they refer to it as ‘‘the loverboy phenomenon.’’ 

This facade of romance to mark a false intent is consistent with 

patterns documented in human-trafficking cases. Although some 

women do in fact—may in fact consent to romance, in no way do 

they consent to abuse, violence and loss of religious identity. Therefore, fraud is present in these cases. Under U.S. trafficking law, if 

force or fraud or coercion is present, you have a case of trafficking. 

Trafficking does not have to be commercial. 

Third, we have identified specific patterns in these instances, Mr. 

Chairman, including the fact that Coptic girls are befriend—and 

this pattern—these patterns would indicate that there is thought 

and strategy and planning. These are not random occurrences or 

random actions. Coptic girls are befriended by Muslim girls who 

are classmates or neighbors, who introduce the Christian—young 

Christian women to their families where they meet a Muslim man. 

Women and girls, often finding themselves in various situations of 

distress are befriended by an older woman who becomes a mother 

figure and trusted confidant. The woman provides material and 

12

emotional assistance during difficult times and introduces the Coptic girl to a Muslim man who can help. 

Women and girls are approached by a Muslim benefactor, who offers services and assistance in the case of illness. There was one 

instance where a young woman was offered help in buying blood 

necessary for a child’s transfusion. 

Once trust has been established, girls can be lured to an isolated 

place, drugged and kidnapped. Often, they are raped. Following the 

rape, the Coptic women experience shame and fear of how their 

families will respond. They become more willing to stay with Muslim friends and marry the rapist because they feel that there is no 

place for them to go. These marriages are accompanied by conversion to Islam at the insistence of the man’s family. And a new Muslim identity card is subsequently issued. Once married, Coptic 

women experience forms of psychological and physical abuse, including rape, beating, verbal abuse, confinement to their apartments, limited freedom of movement, and isolation from their families. 

Furthermore, women report that once the marriage has taken 

place, the new couple or the in-laws receive some material benefit 

in the form of the new apartment, new furniture, or perhaps a job 

given to a derelict son or a former petty—convicted petty thief. 

Escape takes the following forms. In some cases, notably where 

there are no children and where the women persist in wanting to 

get out of the situation, making lives difficult for everyone, the 

woman is sent home. In other cases, she is rescued by friends and 

relatives. However, when children have been born, women rarely 

leave. 

Another point of interest, Mr. Chairman, is that while Islam forbids a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man, a Muslim 

man may marry a non-Muslim woman. In each of the cases documented for this report, conversions and marriages occurred within 

a few days of each other. 

Now, it’s necessary to inquire further why forced marriages of 

Coptic women to Muslim men are accompanied by a conversion 

when Islamic law does not require a conversion. The only purpose 

it seems to serve is the denial of a religious identity, is the annihilation of a religious identity. 

Fourth, counseling sessions with members of their own clergy, 

traditionally part of the conversion process to Islam, are no longer 

available to potential converts. It used to be that if an individual 

opted to convert to Islam, meetings were convened where members 

of my own clergy, together with representatives of the Islamic 

face—faith—would be together in order so that I would understand 

the full implications of my choice. 

Under the former government, these counseling sessions have 

been suspended. Attempts by various human rights lawyers on behalf of religious minorities to challenge this and to restore these 

sessions have not been successful to my knowledge to date. 

Fifth, Coptic women experience physical and psychological abuse 

both before and after their conversions in marriage, including reports, documented reports of forced prostitution by their husbands. 

Sixth, the Egyptian government does not require the legal Christian identity of Coptic women who have returned to their faith 

13

communities of origin to be restored to them. We’ve received some 

reports that a few numbers of women are able to regain their 

Christian identity, but in fact for the most part, a woman is required to live with her Islamic identity until something is done to 

change the situation. 

The Coptic Church has developed some safe houses for victimized 

women and girls. We have visited them and note that provision 

is—some provision is being made for their care. But on the whole, 

the issue is shrouded in ignorance, in fear, in shame, with a real 

unwillingness to bring the issue forward in the country. 

Based on the preliminary findings of this report, we recommended the Helsinki Commission actively pursue the following 

issue—issues: the reinstatement of counseling sessions for those 

completing—contemplating conversions to Islam; the restoration of 

Christian identity cards to former converts of Islam who decide to 

return to their original faith; the investigation of all allegations of 

kidnappings, rape, and other acts of violence against women associated with forced marriages and conversions of Coptic women; and 

the prosecution of perpetrators. 

We encourage the U.S. Government to fund out of its democracy 

funds programs that work toward freedom of religion and the empowerment of women in the Middle East, two essential cornerstones of any free society. 

And finally, Mr. Chairman, let’s get rid of the word ‘‘allegation.’’

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you [applause] so much for your incisive testimony as well. You know, this is an indictment of the Egyptian Government and of a practice that has gone on for far too long. As you 

pointed out in the report, as far back as 1976, Pope Shenouda III 

said—and I quote ‘there is pressure being practiced to convert Coptic girls to Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands.’’ It would appear that the situation has dramatically worsened based on your testimony and the testimonies of our other witnesses. 

And now, you know, as you know, Egypt is a Tier 2 country, 

frankly, and—which suggests that they’re taking actions to combat 

human trafficking. That report just came out, and based on the evidence—and I’ve read the testimonies of our witnesses—I will initiate an effort to get the Ambassador-at-Large, Luis C. deBaca, to 

follow up at a hearing here before the Commission. He is the Ambassador-at-Large for human trafficking. 

And I wrote the law that created that position, so I know the full 

capabilities of that office and that individual—and he is a very 

competent man—to re-look at Egypt because they deserve to be a 

Tier 3 country—an egregious violator that needs to be put on that 

list. 

And we wrote the law that it’s not just done annually—anytime 

information warrants it, a country can be either elevated or demoted in terms of its designation. And Tier 3—there’s a Tier 1, 

Tier 2 watch list, and then a Tier 3. They do not deserve to be on 

Tier 2. And we will be admonishing, encouraging and even demanding that re-evaluation occur quickly because it’s a—it’s a—

this situation, again, our witnesses are bringing this to light. 

14

That’s why we’re having this hearing [laughter] because it is such 

a—an egregious human rights abuse. 

Our next witness, Jean Maher, I want to thank him for traveling 

yesterday across the Atlantic just to be here to present testimony. 

Chief of Staff Mark Milosch and I met with Mr. Maher in Brussels 

a few weeks ago, and we’re absolutely convinced of the great work 

that he is doing on behalf of Coptic Christians. 

And he had a poster, and I wish I had blown it up for all to see, 

of all of these missing girls who have been abducted, that—in most 

cases never to be seen again, forced into a marriage and intimidated, coerced. And so I want to thank Mr. Maher for his leadership and for being here, for flying to be here. And I yield such time 

as he would like to consume for his testimony. 

JEAN MAHER, PRESIDENT, FRENCH OFFICE, EGYPTIAN UNION 

FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION 

Mr. MAHER. Mr. Chairman, and members of the Commission, I 

would like to thank you to give me this opportunity to talk about 

this tragic Coptic girls kidnapping. 

And as you mentioned, Mr. President—Mr. Chairman, this is the 

poster [laughter] that—with the 30 girls. I don’t think they are a 

part of the 50 that you interviewed; these are probably another 30. 

This is circulating in the Internet since 2008, and it was prepared 

by an English Coptic association. So these girls have been kidnapped, have been raped, have been forced to convert to Islam, 

have been forced to marry, and disappeared. 

You know, the numbers of crimes are huge. Each one is just 

alone a huge crime. 

I also have some official documents I got from the human rights 

association in Egypt. It’s one page, one girl. And you can see, you 

know, a photo of a beautiful girl, and then after she had been kidnapped you see other photos with the veil. This is a certificate from 

Al-Azhar Mosque saying that she had been converted to Islam. And 

almost on the same day, or a few days later, you find a statement 

saying that she got married. 

So I have many, many of these beautiful girls who have been 

veiled and disappeared. One of them here escaped. And she escaped without her hair; her hair was just taken away. And she is 

19 years old, a student in university, and she said she was being 

raped. 

So these are just samples of parents who went to the human 

rights organization to complain. And they know, and they told that 

[inaudible] the kidnappers and their accomplices are paid, probably 

financed by Saudis and Gulf countries’ money. And they say that 

one Coptic girl is equivalent to $10,000 to $50,000. So you can see 

how attractive is the business. 

Few girls have succeeded to escape, and they tell their horrible 

experience. As an example, I talked to Aji, Aji Ahd, which is circulating since about 3 weeks on the Net in an Arabic-speaking video. 

Aji was 12 when she was kidnapped; today, she is 16. 

This is what she said: I walked out from my school and was followed by some—all young people. They pushed me in a taxi and 

used a vaporizer so I lost consciousness. And when I woke up, I 

found myself in an apartment—and Aji—with two other girls, inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
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troduced me to a man named Sultan. He took me in a room, tied 

my arms on my back and raped me. Four other men raped me, one 

after one. Each one seemed to have the desire to cut my body in 

pieces as if I was his enemy and hates me. 

You can—it’s terrible when you see the girl talking. For 4 

months I was beaten and had a lot of blue marks. I was unable 

to eat, drink, or sleep. All they want to do was to give me drugs 

and rape me. For 2 consecutive days, five men stayed in the room 

and raped me. I was awake, unable to sleep 24 hours a day. 

She continued crying—more than 50 men during these months 

have raped me. Then my father succeeded in finding me, and I 

came back home. The police security asked me to come for interrogation. The officer only beat me so hard with his feet in my stomach and my back, pulled me from my hair and treated me as a 

street girl. They wanted to force me to say that I left my family 

by my own will, and none of these stories happened. 

I was only 12 when this happened. Why all this? Only because 

I am a Christian? And then continued crying—now everybody 

around me thinks I am a bad girl. 

The father said on the video, I succeeded to get her back alone. 

The police have done nothing, were of no help, and they do not 

have the right to beat her; she has done no fault. 

This is an example of one girl. Now, there’s another example in 

the testimony of a mother that I met her personally by chance 2 

years ago in Egypt. She knew that a French couple would attend 

the meeting, so she came to see us and she told her story. 

She gave me her daughter’s photo, abducted in 2007 at the age 

of 19. She wrote on the back the names of her abductor and her 

Islamist husband. This is what happened: On the last day of the 

faculty exams, she went to a restaurant where her Muslim 

girlfriend offered her a pizza and a Coke. She felt dizzy and called 

her parents, telling them she’s coming back home because she’s 

sick. She never came back. 

Despite the death threats of the police and the police phone tapping, this courageous mother traced and found the names of 

Islamist husband, her Islamist abductors; one of them was registered as a terrorist in the security files. She complained, of 

course, to the police, wrote to the interior minister and former 

president Mubarak. After the revolution, she went to the military 

council and the prime minister. As answer to all that, she has always received silence. 

When she tried to see Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, one of the Presidential guards told her, if your daughter is in the hands of these 

people, forget about her. 

Her daughter is now wearing the niqab, living in [inaudible]. She 

will continue her studies at the university. She was literally seen 

beaten in the street because she dared to answer her mother’s 

phone call. She seems convinced her parents will be killed if she 

tries to escape. 

All the names of the perpetrators, the complicit police officers, 

the complicit university Islamist professors are available. The parents keep hoping to see again their daughter. 

Before meeting this lady 2 years ago, I was not aware of this 

type of struggle in Egypt. Living in France, I preferred not to be 

16

involved in Egyptian or Coptic contacts, limiting this type of activity to conferences, radio interviews on the Coptic Pharaonic background culture. The heartbroken lady, this heartbroken lady, led 

me to different personal commitments. 

There are methods people are using to reach their targets—as 

you say, a methodology. These barbaric acts are executed according 

to a well-elaborated methodology by people who want to give 

money or by people convinced to be doing good for Allah by bringing a kafir infidel woman to Islam. The number of Copts will therefore decrease, the number of Muslims will increase since by law the 

children will follow the religion of the father. 

Since the oriental culture—in the oriental culture, taking away 

a girl’s virginity means taking away the whole family’s honor—so 

the plan pays by either kidnapping or sexually compromising 

Christian girls by defiling, humiliating them. And the psychological 

effect on the girl becomes a shame to her family, and conversion 

to Islam becomes a solution to the problem. 

So besides a girl loses her will, the family is covered by shame, 

condemned by their—by their social environment; there’s Muslims 

claiming the girl came by her own will; and some Christians reproaching, not having take enough care of their daughter—a process—a process leading to humiliation of the Coptic community as 

a whole in front of the supremacy of Islam. 

In a newspaper interview, a Muslim researcher, Mr. Ayman 

Abdel Rasoul (ph), asserted the complicity of the security police. He 

designated as a main instigator Imam Abu Islam Ahmed Abdullah, 

known as Abu Islam. Acting through an association called Nur alIslam, the Light of Islam, he revealed that the girls are gathered 

in one building in a Cairo suburb. He also gave a list of Islamist 

association specialized in soliciting the Coptic girls using Internet, 

money, employment and other means. And he said that these associations have a—the security support and the security cover-up. 

He gave the list just as a record [speaking in Arabic] Winners 

of Muhammad [inaudible] association; al Sharia—al Sharia, the legitimate association, a radical Salafist one; Nur al-Islam, the Light 

of Islam association; and many others. 

Information from other sources gives the methods used in four 

steps: One, grouping nine minor girls between 12 and 17 years old 

in one apartment where they are drugged, brainwashed, and probably raped; two, keep them up to the majority age of 18 where they 

are brought to another mosque to convert to Islam; they immediately obtain their ID mentioning their religion as Muslim instead 

of Christian, and their name is changed using a Muslim name. 

Note that the opposite way is impossible. 

Three, bring young boys or men or old men, and for them, to 

marry one of them; four, keep the girl away from her family; maintain the doubt on the Christian doctrine—God cannot marry and 

has no son. And you keep terror and fear that she’s ashamed to her 

family who will kill her if she returns. And anyway, since she became a Muslim, she can’t go back to Christianity or she’ll be killed 

according to Sharia law. Four steps, methods, horrors. 

Now what statistics? How many girls? There are hundreds. I just 

mentioned what has been monitored and recorded. The Egyptian 

Union for Human Rights Organization monitored 800 cases since 

17

2009. Egypt for Christ monitored 45 cases, under 18 years, since 

January revolution. They have 275 cases known between 2005 and 

2010, under 18—275 cases known under 18, and 400 cases over 18. 

Now, is this just a work of some small radical people? No. This 

is a part of a huge plan, probably, probably, and it’s not a false 

alarm. It’s preparation for a Coptic genocide. Egypt is the only 

Muslim country to have an important number of Christians with 

at least around 12 million Copts. 

We will not talk about the number of converted Muslims, they 

are just hidden. Some people talk about 1 to 2 millions. So these 

Copts still maintain some of the Pharaonic civilizations through 

their everyday customs, through their Coptic language, the Coptic 

language which is the last version of the Pharaonic hieroglyphics. 

The Copts represent an obstacle to the radical Islamists, who are 

dreaming to establish the great worldwide Islamic caliphate nation. 

Strategic plans are set to get—to get rid of them slowly but firmly 

by different means. Disappearance of minor Coptic girls and 

women is just one of their horrible means. In Iraq already, out of 

more than 1 million Christians 4 years ago, only 300,000 to 

400,000 are left. Will this happen to Egypt? 

After Alexandria church bombing, at the 2011 New Year’s Eve 

following the Baghdad church bombing, President—French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave a speech on the 7th of January. He denounced the religious—a religious extermination plan to get rid of 

the Middle East Christians. He mentioned that France will not tolerate such a plan. 

On March 5th, after the revolution, Mr. Patrick Devedjian, Member of Parliament, former Minister, was invited to one—as a guest 

speaker, to one of conferences on Egypt’s revolution. A son of Armenian parents who ran away from the Turkish genocide, he recalled 

the context of the euphoric Turkish Revolution in 1908, seeking 

freedom, democracy. He said—was euphoric as it is in Egypt today, 

there were [inaudible] our country away from the religious Ottoman power. Only 7 years later, 1915, around 1.2 millions Armenians, two-thirds of them, were exterminated, and he wished to ask 

the Copts that because of today’s media, because of today’s fast 

communication, this will prevent such a scenario to the Copts—to 

the Copts of Egypt. 

What is the international community’s role? A U.S. or international human rights investigation commission is absolutely necessary to examine the events freely. I know that in the European 

Parliament, the idea is going through and maybe if the commission 

here takes the same decision, maybe a coordinated work would be 

set with the European Parliament to pressure the military council 

to take actions, as was mentioned before, with a precise time plan. 

And you should expect the answer is thus—is just that these are 

only individual love stories where a Coptic girl wants to follow her 

Muslim lover. And then pressure Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Countries to stop financing these terrorist acts. 

As a conclusion, I have a message and a request. The message: 

The Muslim Brotherhoods will never change or leave their objective 

of restoring the Islamic caliphate. Their foundation is Allah is our 

target, the Prophet is our model, the Koran is our law, the holy 

war is our way, the martyrdom is our wish. These are the funVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
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damentals and the basics of the Muslim Brotherhoods. They will 

not change them. They will not leave their objective of restoring 

the Islamic caliphate. They are only changing tactics. They are 

adapting their language to democracy and to the Western ears. 

The early parliamentary elections that were planned in September now, because of the young revolutionaries’ pressure on the 

council—on the military council, have been reported to November. 

If they are held either in September or in November, they will 

bring the Muslim Brotherhoods to power. Why? Because for the 

last 30 years, Mubarak regime and his surroundings were just interested in staying in their chair, in their power, and they left the 

society in the hands of these people. 

So the Egyptian society is invested by a culture of hate, and as 

an example, one child, 8 years old, said to his Christian friend, yesterday was my birthday, I invited all my friends except you because you are Christian. In my time, when I was at this age, we 

had no such things, and all my—all my friends are Muslims; when 

I go to Egypt, I don’t even have Christian friends now. But my faculty of Muslim friends, and they are very good one, and they did—

we didn’t—never lived such a hate situation. 

So an early parliamentary election will not represent the real 

democratic demands. I can say early election is just undemocratic, 

and they will be very similar to what happened in Gaza. They were 

100 percent democratic, they were controlled by an international 

commission and they brought Hamas. So democracy brings—when 

the country’s not ready, she brings what is left. So what is in Egypt 

now is the Muslim Brotherhood. What is required is a constitutional framework that must be prepared first. So we urge the commission, we urge the U.S. Congress to take that into consideration. 

Now, this is a message; I have now a request, a request to President Obama: The U.S. Middle East policy should encourage the 

Muslim liberals. They are also Muslims; they should not favor 

handing over Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhoods. There is a huge 

difference between Muslims, Muslim Brotherhoods who are behind 

al-Qaida, who are behind the 9/11. No. 2 of al-Qaida, al-Zawahiri, 

is a medical doctor who was involved in Sadat assassination; he 

was the mastermind of the 9/11. Bin Laden had only the financing. 

The leader of the 9/11, of the 20 people, Mohammad Atta, a Ph.D. 

engineer from Germany, he was the leader of the 20 people in the 

different planes. He was Egyptian engineer. These people are coming from Muslim Brotherhoods. Consequences of getting Muslim 

Brotherhoods on the power of Egypt will be huge, and they are not 

in the interest of the American people. 

The second request was also mentioned before: A U.S. financing 

aid to Egypt must be conditioned, must be conditioned by a real 

democratic process according to the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights and not according to the Shariah Islamic law, as 

Muslim Brotherhoods are claiming. Actions are needed, actions are 

needed now before it’s too late. Thank you. [Applause.] 

Mr. MILOSCH. Mr. Maher, thank you very much, and thanks to 

Ms. Doss and Ms. Clarke as well. It’s very, very moving to hear 

your testimony. For those of us joining us down at C–SPAN, I’ll say 

that Chairman Smith and the other Commissioners left to vote, but 

19

because this hearing is so important and we have C–SPAN here 

live, we’re going to continue the proceedings. 

My name is Mark Milosch. I’m the Chief of Staff of the Helsinki 

Commission. I’m here right now with Shelly Han, who’s on Commission staff as Policy Advisor and Allison Hollabaugh who is on 

Mr. Smith’s personal office staff and expert on trafficking issues. 

So we’ll proceed with some questions that the Chairman has left 

us. The first question I have is, have any Muslim leaders in Egypt 

condemned the kidnapping, forced marriage, forced conversion of 

Coptic Christian girls? Has anyone spoken out against this? 

Mr. MAHER. I have only the one who mentioned—the name I 

gave—just the name I gave, who mentioned these associations and 

recognized that this is happened and it is a part of a plan. So I 

only have one courageous Muslim man who is talking about it. 

Most of what I have seen on the TV and what I have read in the 

newspapers are just trying to transform these events into a love 

story and that the girls just left by their own will. Even Coptics 

I heard, they said it’s a false problem because they have been also 

influenced by the media and by the newspapers they read. So what 

is really known is limited—is limited to the Christian people. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Thank you. 

Ms. Doss, Ms. Clark? 

Ms. CLARK. I’m sorry; I have not been able to find any in my research. 

Ms. DOSS. I agree with Ms. Clark; I haven’t—I haven’t heard of 

anyone actually condemning it and coming out and speaking out 

against this—these crimes. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Could any of you or perhaps all of you walk me 

through the, say, a day in the life of a Coptic Christian in Egypt? 

Tell me just how it’s different from what it should be—just how the 

persecution, the repressive atmosphere, the discrimination in the 

society presents itself. I mean, when you go out on the street in the 

morning, what is different from what it should be when you—say 

when you go to register for a driver’s license? When you, say, go 

to a restaurant; could you give me a picture of how daily life and 

the daily things that we go through? Get granular here. What is 

different, and you might also address, you know, what’s different 

since the revolution, and whether you believe it’s going downhill 

since then? 

Please, Ms. Doss. 

Ms. DOSS. Sure. I’ve actually been speaking with a lot of people 

who have been fleeing Egypt. As an immigration attorney I meet 

a lot of people who are now interested in immigrating to the United 

States because they describe a situation which is completely intolerable. 

A day in the life: the hate speech. Let’s start with that. The 

microphones that are attached to the mosques, the sermons are 

just filled with hate, and I’ve heard from several different clients 

throughout different parts of Egypt this new common prayer: May 

the Lord make their wives widows and their children orphans, and 

on and on, diseases and destruction and all these different things. 

This is what people hear when they open their balcony or they 

open up their window from the local mosque. So you can imagine 

what these people are thinking when they’re hitting the street, 

20

aside from the spitting, the cursing, especially for the women because they’re obviously easily identified as Christian because 

they’re not wearing the veil. 

From many women I have heard they just stopped leaving their 

home and that the men in the house have now become responsible 

for things like food shopping because they’re afraid to leave their 

homes. So it’s become much more difficult. There is definitely that 

overall fear for women to leave their homes and as far as men go, 

they’re dealing with fear that they may be attacked. Obviously 

there’s a fear of going to churches. I’ve actually also heard that approximately 50 churches have closed in the last few months, and 

Coptic Solidarity has actually visited 10 of them and confirmed 

that yes, they are in fact closed. So people are now afraid to go to 

their churches, afraid to walk out on the street if they’re not veiled 

and if they’re identifiable as a Copt. So it has definitely impacted 

the daily lives of Coptic Christians in Egypt. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Ms. Clark? 

Ms. CLARK. I would just like to share an anecdote. When I was 

visiting Egypt in company with Nadia Ghaly, a Coptic woman 

originally from Egypt, we visited the Egyptian Museum, and she 

pointed out to me very clearly that——

Mr. MILOSCH. You missed the button on your microphone, Ms. 

Clark? 

Ms. CLARK. It was pressed; sorry about that. But I’ll speak 

more—is this better? 

Mr. MILOSCH. That is. Thanks. 

Ms. CLARK. She pointed—so when I was in Egypt, I visited with 

Nadia Ghaly, my co-author and a Coptic—Egyptian Coptic woman, 

we visited the Egyptian Museum, and she pointed out very specifically that none of the guides, the curators and the professional 

staff in the museum were of Coptic origin. This was a deep—she 

was deeply disturbed by this because to her it indicated that the 

very custodians of a heritage that was in fact hers, that she could 

claim as a Copt—Copts trace their history back to the time—to—

for thousands of years in Egypt, that they were cutoff from being 

the custodians of their own heritage, and therefore it was an affront to her that Copts were not allowed to represent some of the 

history of the country. 

Mr. MILOSCH. That’s very interesting, this notion of the Copts 

having been there for so long, it being their history. How does that 

play out in the relations between Egyptians and Copts—is it—between Muslim Egyptians and Copts, is there something that occurs 

in the rhetoric that’s directed against Copts in any way? Does it—

is it—does it complicate the rhetoric or the relationship? 

Ms. CLARK. I would defer to perhaps Mr. Maher. 

Mr. MAHER. What—I think, when I was a child at school, we 

never been taught about the Coptic history. I learned about my 

own history when I came to France because my French wife is a 

history teacher, and she motivated me to discover my own history. 

But I think there are also many people here at my age. The history 

of the Coptics were just out of the books. Now it starts to be discovered because of the communication, now the Muslims start to understand that we had 3,000 years of pharaonic civilization, 3,000 

before Christ—3,000 to 5,000 before Christ, and then 700 years of 

21

Egypt, Christian—by the first century was 100 percent Christians, 

and then when the Arabs came in the seventh century, they found 

only Christians and they named them ‘‘Copts.’’ So that’s why 

‘‘Copts’’ are identified as inhabitants of Egypt, but a Copt is a 

Christian because when they came there were only Christians. 

And then for 1,400 years, there was persecution, they have asked 

the people to either convert or to pay the taxes or to be killed. So 

many of them have converted to Islam, and some of them paid the 

taxes and we are the descendants of these people who—not necessarily noble people, but people who could pay the taxes and 

maintain their religion. And the Coptic language was maintained 

until the 19th century. It is the Pharaonic language. Now, the people are discovering this history today, a lot of Muslims, and even 

some of the Muslims say: I am also Coptic; I am a Coptic Muslim, 

because I bring back my history to the Pharaonic period. The 

Salafist and the Muslim Brotherhoods are against that, because 

since the 7th century, everything before is erased, does not exist 

anymore and we are going to the Arabic culture, toward the Arabian Peninsula. There were no Saudis. It was the Arabian Peninsula. So even they don’t—they call the 7th century invasion; they 

call it ‘‘opening’’ and not—it is a re-invasion, a re-conquest. 

So a lot of Muslim liberals today, and one of the most active is 

calling the Muslims to come back—not to change their religion, but 

to come back and recognize their history. How many countries, he 

said, in the world, have pyramids and Sphinx? Only Egypt. So you 

Muslims, keep your religion, but go back to accept your own history; it is not the Arabic culture. 

So I think it’s [inaudible] coming to the surface and more known. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Thank you. So there is some struggle over the past 

and this notion of legitimacy. 

Now, I’ll turn to Ms. Han for a question. 

Ms. HAN. I’m wondering if you can describe what the reaction is 

within the Coptic community in terms of, are they working to perhaps change some of their own perceptions of, you know, how we 

can bring our daughters back into their communities, some of the 

long-held stigma that might be—that might be attached to that; 

and then also if you could talk about their—how are they going 

about trying to find daughters? I hear from all of your statements 

that there is very little cooperation with the police, but what other 

ways—are there other ways that they’ve sort of banded together to 

try to protect their community? I’d just be interested in what sort 

of response there’s been because of the increase in this—these incidents. 

Ms. CLARK. Would you like to begin? 

Mr. MAHER. Go ahead. 

Ms. CLARK. The more information that gets out about the story, 

the stronger the families and the communities are able to be, because it dispels the myth of secrecy, it dispels the myth of shame, 

it dispels the myth of isolation; and therefore, there is—in hearings 

such as this and in other reports such as my fellow panelists, there 

is—there is value because it informs—it informs the Coptic community that, no, these are not isolated instances and that in fact, their 

daughters are caught up in a much larger phenomenon, an insidVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
22

ious, targeted, and methodical attack against their most deeply 

held values. 

However, because the phenomena is just beginning to gain public 

recognition, a lot of effort still needs to be done. There are pockets 

of initiatives that in fact really deserve to be strengthened. There 

are individual parish priests, who, as I indicated in my report and 

my oral testimony today, are greatly concerned about it, because 

they see the daughters that disappear from their own communities. 

There are—there are monasteries which create shelters in places 

they don’t know, because some families still struggle with the notion of taking back their daughter—is this not our honor, but is 

this not—are these not our daughters? And so they’re benefiting 

from the increased understanding and awareness that’s being 

raised. 

One action that Coptic families are taking in my research is that 

they’re increasingly struggling to send their daughters to private 

schools. This is a hardship for many, because Coptic religious 

schools are more expensive than public schools. But hopefully in so 

doing, the girls are protected there—at least they are able to have 

peers—friends among their own peers and they’re also able to recognize that it’s OK to be a Copt, whereas for many of them who 

are in public schools, they sometimes experience—and they’re 

friends with their classmates—just as when we’re teenagers, we’re 

all friends with everybody. Peer pressure is a great thing when 

you’re a young adolescent and the need to belong, the not—the 

need not to feel that you’re part of not only a minority but a despised minority is very difficult for a young person. So consequently, parents view private-school education as something that 

can strengthen a young person’s sense of individual identity. 

We’re seeing efforts made certainly among Coptic communities in 

the diaspora to spread the news among individuals and among the 

communities to raise greater awareness about this. But this is 

something that, in my subsequent research, I look forward to working on a great deal. I teach courses on issues of women in global 

politics at George Washington University. I include these topics in 

my classes. It’s one way of beginning to create a level of discourse 

that perhaps has not been raised. 

Mr. MAHER. They can help girls who came back. They can help 

by putting on the Internet a lot of messages now: Take care of your 

girls. But what’s happening is more and more now, the girls are 

accompanied by the brother or by the mother or by someone because they always are in fear. 

I know even a cousin—she said, I don’t dress in pants anymore 

because the pant is becoming a symbol of Christian, so—and it is 

a danger. But if you take the examples of almost all the parents 

who went to the police claiming that their girl is kidnapped, they 

are very badly treated by the police. They are insulted, and they—

they even sometimes refuse to make the official claim, and then 

they tell them you come back tomorrow or after tomorrow and then 

if we hear something, we’ll let you know. But if [inaudible] you let 

us know. 

So I think that these determined people, these radical Islamist 

people who are determined—they send, you know, their—the people around schools, around universities, and the Coptic girls are 

23

easily found because she doesn’t dress in veils. So they are just all 

the time at risk. 

Ms. DOSS. I have read about many accounts actually of family 

members, obviously writing first to the police to file their report 

and essentially given the runaround, and then after persisting, police have responded by either beating family members or placing 

restraining orders on them, saying, well, you’re posing a threat to 

this girl now. Or they would say things that would—I can’t even 

imagine how the family members would feel—don’t worry; she’s 

married now; she’s taken care of. I can’t even imagine what a parent of a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old is thinking or feeling when 

hearing a response like that. You know where she is, but you’re not 

giving her back to me. 

And in a couple of cases, actually, I heard of parents taking matters into their own hands. And there was actually a case that was 

in the paper, I think, a couple of years ago about how a family 

went into a home where they knew the girl was, took her back—

the uncles and the dad—brought her back to their home, and then 

obviously the Muslim family came back and took her back forcibly. 

And police, instead of stopping them, allowed them—the girl to be 

taken back to the Muslim family. And I actually did speak with one 

individual who described to me how his daughter was kidnapped 

and knew that there was no hope to go to the police and actually 

bought her back. He exchanged a piece of property through an attorney and got his daughter back and brokered her back like a 

piece of property. 

So sometimes on occasion people do take things into their own 

hands, but overall, there’s no help, obviously, from the legal system. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Ms. Doss, that is truly shocking what you say 

about the police. Do you think we’re dealing here with a police that 

does not punish this crime because they have a policy of ‘‘we don’t 

punish crimes committed by Muslims against Christians’’ or because—it’s even worse than that—because ‘‘we’re OK with, we’re 

fine with, in fact, we think it’s in some ways a good thing when 

this happens?’’ I mean, is this almost a kind of quasi state policy 

on some local and administrative levels, or is it simply a matter of, 

well, we don’t like it, but we don’t do anything about it because we 

don’t punish Muslim crimes against Christians? 

Ms. DOSS. I think it is a policy, because you see a clear pattern 

here. Dozens and dozens of family members going to police and reporting this and police knowing where these women are, and turning them away saying she’s now—she’s now married—she’s now 

married. And what about the cases where the restraining orders 

get slapped on the parents? That’s the court system interfering 

also. 

So they know where these women are, and they are allowing it 

to continue. It is government-sanctioned. If you look at the practice, 

that’s what it is. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Ms. Clark, Mr. Maher, do you agree? 

Mr. MAHER. Yes. Yes, I agree on that. It’s a part of the government—of the people’s government plan. We knew that the bombing 

of Alexandria church was planned and that the ministry of interior 

himself was involved, in order to show that the government is 

24

doing what it can to stop and look and so forth on these terrorists 

of—you know, the government of Mubarak was always playing 

both sides—you know, showing externally that Mr. Mubarak, I am 

the protector of the Copts, and then leaving, you know, the fanatics 

and radicals attacking and doing nothing. And it is also true that 

the security forces, what they call, you know, the security police, 

have a file and are—in complicity with the people. They have a file 

of each girl, of each family. And if a commission is set, these files 

have been—must be found because they have all the stories. And 

on the first day these things happen, they [inaudible] delay in 

order that the other Muslim people get organized and then in 24 

hours, they would come with a testament saying that she went to 

Alazar and is Muslim now. So the family have nothing to do with 

that. These are the police’s work. 

So they are 100 percent involved. And what is surprising—this 

is happening all over Egypt. You know, if we say that [inaudible] 

Muslims say that this is [inaudible] for the Muslim people—but 

this is happening in different areas, different cities, different villages, and the scenario and the behavior of the police is the same: 

do nothing, leave it and shoo these parents away. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Ms. Clark? 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Maher presented an impressive 

list of statistics, basically by my math, close to a thousand documented cases—not a single documented prosecution. So there’s—we 

can definitely—we can definitely assume that there’s not a lot of 

forethought or intent given to pursuing any of these allegations legally. It’s a real problem in any kind of preventative measure, and 

we need to look at it from that perspective as well, because the—

as these victims recognize that their voices are not being heard and 

that they have no recourse and that in fact if they try to seek recourse, they and their families will bear serious consequences, they 

will no longer come forward, and those who could come forward 

will not. 

So the lack of prosecution, the lack of investigations followed by 

the lack of prosecutions, leads to a continued and ongoing cloak of 

silence, which only exacerbates the problem. We’ve seen this in the 

anti-trafficking community all too often, where the—where numbers—where instances of legitimate cases of human trafficking are 

minimized in the public eye and the government eye because victims don’t come forward. That doesn’t mean that there’s not a problem. It just means—it means that there’s something going on to 

prevent women from coming forward and seeking justice. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Now, it seems we have a very grave problem at 

the local level, for sure. I’d like to ask you, is there any level of 

the government where—diplomatically—this issue can be raised 

and find a sympathetic ear? If local government is complicit in and 

at times encouraging or in league with abductors, people who are 

involved in forced marriages, forced conversions, is there a particular ministry in the government, aside from the police ministry, 

where we would get a more sympathetic ear with this problem or 

a different level, perhaps the highest level, does not approve of this 

but has a policy, rather, of—as so many countries do, of not punishing its own policemen when they do the wrong thing? I mean, 

25

I’m looking for a glimmer of hope or a place or ministry level or 

angle where this issue can be most constructively raised. 

Ms. CLARK. From some of the conversations that I’ve had, I think 

that—I think that you can look at what happens within the conversion process. And what was of great interest to me was the suspension of the counseling sessions. These counseling sessions were designed, in fact, to have—if a Coptic girl was in this particular situation, a mandatory counseling session with a member of her clergy 

as well as a member of the Muslim clergy was designed so that in 

fact she could hear from a member of her own clergy, if you convert 

to Islam, you may never again convert back to your religion; your 

children will be raised as Muslims; this is—this is what will happen. 

Now, often—and certainly because the conversions are produced 

under duress, very rapidly following acts of violence, there’s really 

little awareness or understanding of what’s actually at stake when 

a young woman converts and goes through this particular process. 

So that’s one very specific institutional function that can be reinstated in order to help protect young women who are being converted. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Ms. Doss, Mr. Maher? 

Ms. DOSS. If I can expand on something Ms. Clark had just mentioned, the counseling sessions, as far as I understood, took place 

in state security offices. So that’s also an indication, obviously, that 

they were aware of what was happening. And I’ve spoken to people 

that have—also I believe she’s entitled to a family member there, 

right? She’s entitled to see a family member and her priest. And 

I’ve spoken to family members who have been to these meetings 

with this kidnapped girl and have described a drugged girl who 

couldn’t even respond or think when she was sitting there in state 

security. 

One client once mentioned to me that as his sister sat there—

it was, like, maybe for 3 minutes—the one thing she said to him 

was, I had to do it for the children. And then they just took her 

away. She left behind two children, two Coptic children. 

So obviously this is an indication that they’re aware and that 

they’re participating in the process. 

Mr. MAHER. The context has changed before the revolution and 

after the revolution. Before the revolution, since the regime was 

playing a double game, you could always find [inaudible] in the 

government trying to put a little bit of pressure and so on. After 

the revolution, there is no more security forces, no more police for 

the whole country. So the problem is becoming even worse, because 

before it was [inaudible] starting to seduce or attract, but now they 

just put them in the car, in the taxi, and go away with them. And 

they’re not only young girls, even married women. It is becoming 

disastrous after the revolution. 

Why they destroyed the church and just talked about, it was 

seen on the TV. We can see the people with their axes breaking 

down doors of the church. We can see the attackers on the top door 

of the church singing and shouting and inciting the people to come 

and destroy the church. All of these people have been seen. So ask 

them, because they have wanted to solve the solution. They decided 

that the church would be reconstructed, but they had to get authorVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
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ization from these people—from the Salafist Imam. They had to go 

to ask authorization as a fatwa to say we can start the work of reconstruction. 

So I think there is—today—in the context of today, there is only 

one way: It is an outside pressure. The international community 

must have one voice. This is not acceptable. This has to reach the 

military council. They have the power. They have fear because they 

need money. So the message should be clear: We are going to help 

you and give you money. But things are rotten in your country. A 

country infested by hate is not going to be solved in 24 hours. They 

need at least two generations to come back to what I was living in 

my childhood. 

So I said only international pressure, only American pressure, 

European pressure and international committee pressure, outside 

pressure; clear messages will make them move. 

Mr. MILOSCH. Thank you. And it sounds like this pressure should 

be directed at the professional military groups, which have a somewhat different ethos of the populist one of the new government. 

Mr. MAHER. Yes, probably also the Prime Minister and the government. Yes. 

Mr. MILOSCH. OK. Thanks very much. The Chairman is back 

with us. 

[Offside conversation.] 

Ms. HAN. Ms. Doss, I was interested—in your practice, have you 

come across or have there been successful asylum cases, given the 

fact that the—that we don’t have prosecution, there are no—there 

is no evidence of prosecution of any cases within Egypt—so you 

don’t really have a documented trail of evidence about this type of 

persecution—and also the vague language that we’ve seen in the 

TIP Report, have you been able to make any cases, or have there 

been any asylum cases? Or how is the U.S. Immigration Service 

handling these types of requests, or are there any requests—[off 

mic]? 

Ms. DOSS. That’s a very good question. Actually, there are lots 

of people filing for asylum cases right now. And personally, with 

myself, we’re at a 99 percent grant rate, which is amazing. And 

when I say ‘‘granted,’’ I mean granted within 8 weeks from the date 

you file to the date you get granted. So they have been very supportive of Coptic Christians and their plight. And also, obviously, 

someone representing them would go through a great length of 

supplying supporting documents about what’s happening in Egypt. 

Of course, what would be more helpful is if we had the State Department making an official determination that there’s a pattern 

and practice of persecution against Copts, so there wouldn’t be that 

struggle in proving that case. Proving that you’re a Coptic Christian should be enough at this point, based on what it is that we’re 

seeing out there. 

So we have met, actually, with representatives from the State 

Department and asked, please, make a conclusion of this report; 

you’ve described pattern and practice, but you haven’t spelled it 

out; you need to draw that conclusion. So we definitely encourage 

that. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. We’re joined by Congressman 

Frank Wolf, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, that deals 

27

with the Justice Department and science. We’re also joined by the 

Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee for the Judiciary Committee, Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona, who’s also the 

Chairman of the Religious Freedom Caucus here in the House. And 

I’d like to yield, if he’d like, to Mr. Wolf, if he has any comments, 

having just been in Egypt. 

HON. FRANK WOLF (R–10) A MEMBER IN CONGRESS FROM THE 

STATE OF VIRGINIA 

Mr. WOLF. Well, I really don’t have any questions. I just wanted 

to say I appreciate Mr. Smith having this hearing. I’m anxious to 

read your testimony. I would just say, for a long period of time, the 

Coptic Christians have been treated very, very poorly there—I 

mean in Egypt. And I hope whatever the Congress does with regard to aid or whatever, it conditions with regard to any support 

that whereby the Coptic Christians can be treated like anyone else, 

along with the Ahmadi and the Baha’is and others. And I’m looking 

forward to your—reading your testimony, and I appreciate this 

Commission having this hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Wolf, thank you very much. Chairman 

Franks. 

HON. TRENT FRANKS (R–8) A MEMBER IN CONGRESS FROM 

THE STATE OF ARIZONA 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I would just echo Chairman Wolf’s perspective, as well as your own. I’m always grateful to you, Chairman 

Smith, because of your lifelong commitment to religious freedom. 

So often times we are thankful in this country for our constitutional rights, and we consider protecting the lives and the constitutional rights of our citizens to be the preeminent focal point of our 

government. And yet we forget that the foundation of really all 

freedoms, the core freedom that there is, is religious freedom because without that, of course, there are no—there is no other type 

of freedom. 

And some of us are especially concerned about the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt and other places. The reports of children or 

young women being forced into marriages within—kind of forced 

Islamization (ph), if you might call it that, where they are forced 

into marrying people that—they maybe have a totally different perspective, and their freedoms being overcome in that regard—

that’s—those are—those are things that the media should be focused on and looking at very carefully because those reports are 

unsettling, to say the least, where a young woman, 16, 17 years 

old, is forced to marry someone outside her faith for the very purposes of trying to rob her of religious freedom, among other things. 

And I just, again, am grateful to Chairman Smith. In the final 

analysis, you know, even in this country when we—when we have 

a condemned killer and they’re going to be put to death for their 

crimes, we still recognize their religious freedoms. And it is the last 

bastion of freedom there is. And if we in this country—who are 

known for our commitment to religious freedom and freedom of individual and human dignity in general—if we don’t defend and do 

what we can to protect our brothers and sisters across the world, 

then I’m afraid we’ve hastened the day when that door of coercion 

28

will—that—when that hand of coercion will be knocking on our 

own door. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman, very, very much, and I hope you’ll 

forgive me that I do have to go to another gathering, but I want 

to commend everyone that is in this battle and hope that we can 

be part of assisting you in the future. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Franks, thank you so very much. And I 

would like to just ask—perhaps Michele Clark, you might be the 

best to answer this. You know, the President has gone to Cairo. He 

gave his famous Cairo speech. Secretary of State has obviously 

raised issues relevant to Egypt on numerous occasions. Has the 

Obama administration raised the issue of kidnapping of Coptic 

girls and young women? Have they done it in a way that has had 

any kind of consequence? And we are now, the United States, a 

member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is—was supposed to be the follow-on to the egregiously flawed Human Rights 

Commission, which never did much of anything except berate 

Israel. I mean, it—even insiders at the U.N. said the Council or the 

Commission had to go. 

Regrettable, it’s almost like de ́ja` vu over again, to quote Yogi 

Berra; it’s like it’s the same organization. But we do have a seat 

on the Human Rights Council. And to the best of your knowledge, 

has the United States raised the kidnapping and trafficking—sex 

trafficking of young Coptic girls and women at the Human Rights 

Council, any other venue at the United Nations; and has it been 

raised on a government-to-government level with the high officials 

in Egypt? 

Ms. CLARK. Mr. Smith, thank you for the question. My answer 

is no, as to the best of my knowledge. In preparation for the testimony today, I’ve been actively reviewing any current news that 

post-dates the publication of my report and the recent research so 

that I would have the most current information available. And I’ve 

not been able to find anything to that effect. If it exists, I have—

I have not—I have not yet seen it. 

What is the—I would venture, however, that my not knowing 

about this means that it doesn’t exist. You perhaps are familiar 

with the challenges that we faced in including Egypt in the 2010 

TIP Report. We initially presented the findings—you know, some 

of our findings to the Office to Combat, Monitor Trafficking , and 

the initial response was these were only allegations. Thanks to you 

and the support of other Members of Congress in a bipartisan way, 

Ambassador deBaca was encouraged to revisit the issue; and in 

fact, Egypt was then included in the 2010 TIP Report. It was not—

the issue of the Coptic Christian women was not raised this year, 

but further, based on the studies that I intend to continue, we hope 

as per your recommendation earlier in this hearing to continue to 

advance the issue. 

Mr. SMITH. We will invite, as I indicated earlier, Ambassador 

Luis C. deBaca, who is the point person for the Obama administration on human trafficking, to a Commission hearing—again, he’s 

been here before—to ask him specifically, what have they done—

in chronological order; this is something that’s not new—what has 

that office done? We’ll also ask Michael Posner, who is the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Labor and Human Rights; and we’ll 

29

ask the Secretary herself—although I doubt she’ll make her way up 

to Capitol Hill; she rarely does—to answer those questions, and 

what has been the response if any, because to the best of my 

knowledge, this has been a non-issue, and that oversight has to 

end, and it has to end here today. 

Mr. Wolf—Chairman Wolf. 

Mr. WOLF. [Off mic.] 

Ms. CLARK. Mr. Wolf, thank you for that comment. As I noted 

earlier, in three sentences in the TIP Report, the use of the word—

the word ‘‘allegation’’ or ‘‘alleged’’ was used, I believe, five times. 

So there’s less than a committed interest. 

Mr. WOLF. What number do you believe we’re talking about? 

How many individuals would we be talking about per year or 

maybe over the last 10 years? If it’s one, it’s too many, so—but can 

you give me—what the number that you believe this may very well 

be? I’m at a—somewhat a disadvantage; I’m just reading your testimony. I didn’t have it before time. I saw—where the one monastery, 45, it was said. 

When I was there, some of the Coptic Christians raised this 

issue. That’s why I think this should be one of the things when the 

foreign affairs bill comes up or the foreign operations bill, there 

ought to be a conditionality. I mean, for so many years, the Egyptian Government has rolled this Congress—both political parties, 

Republican and Democratic administrations. They’ve hired powerful people, a former Congressman and everything, to lobby for 

them, and these issues never, never come up. Now with the opportunity of new elections and a whole—hopefully a clean slate, if you 

will, there has to be some sort of conditionality. But how many do 

you believe we’re talking about country-wide? 

Ms. CLARK. Again, great, great question. And again, as in the 

early days of the anti-trafficking movement, we’ve run up against 

the challenge of numbers, but I’m trying to help remedy that, as 

is my fellow panelist here. And I’ll turn the floor over to him in 

a minute. 

In the early days of the TIP Report, 100 cases were sufficient for 

a country to be—to be included in the TIP report. Since then, 

they’ve done away with the number. I would just like to say that 

the methodology that I used in my report in Egypt was a similar 

methodology. I used documenting trafficking cases—the word ‘‘allegation’’ was never included back then. I find it odd that the same 

methodology warranted the use of the word ‘‘allegation’’ in this current TIP Report. 

Mr. Maher, you had some interesting numbers. Perhaps you’d 

like to repeat them for Mr. Wolf’s benefit. But I would—I would—

I would say that you’re looking at several thousand cases a year. 

Mr. WOLF. Wow. 

Mr. MAHER. Yes, well, I think that’s [laughter] that’s a summary. 

I showed one page, one girl—these are copies that I got from a 

human rights organization in Cairo. 

Mr. WOLF. Has that been submitted to the Commission? 

Mr. MAHER. I will make a copy. [Laughter.] No problem, yes. So 

this is—these are just samples. I didn’t make copies of all—of everything. They—these are parents who came to claim the disappearance of their daughter. And I—we prefer to give numbers 

30

that we are sure of. So at this human rights association, they monitored 800 cases since 2009. So they have 800 sheets of paper—one 

paper, one girl. Egypt for Christ monitored 45 cases under 18 since 

January, since March, after the revolution. And for 5 years, between 2005 and 2010, they know 275 cases under 18 and 400 cases 

over 18. So these are the figures we are sure of. But we are also 

sure that there are thousands. 

Mr. WOLF. Because the families are reluctant to come forward, 

and the fear of the government? 

Mr. MAHER. Yes, this is one of the reasons. The other is they 

don’t—they don’t have money. Most of them may be from, you 

know, poor—poor people, so they cannot go to hire a lawyer, and 

they are just powerless. 

Mr. WOLF. One other question then. Has the Pope, Pope 

Shenouda, spoken out on this? 

Mr. MAHER. Yes. 

Mr. WOLF. He has? When? 

Mr. MAHER. Yes—sorry, I couldn’t——

Mr. WOLF. When? 

Mr. MAHER. I saw him on the TV in—you know, every Wednesday, he lectures at the Cathedral of Cairo. And one time, a mother 

was present, and she shouted about her daughter disappearing. 

And of course, the patriarch reacted, you know, with a lot of sensitivity and said, please come, and we will help you. And he said we 

know of other cases—believe me, we do our best. That was public. 

We know a lot of cases and we are doing our best. But our best 

from, you know, the man of a church is what? Is going to the—to 

the government and say, please do something, and then nothing 

happens. 

Mr. WOLF. Well, I—Mr. Chairman, I think Anne Patterson is 

coming by to see me, I think next week—I think. The current Ambassador has just left. The DCM is acting. He’s been appointed, I 

think, an ambassador to another country. But I’ll raise this, and 

I think the committee ought to raise this with the new Ambassador. She’s a good person, and I think to force this issue, whereby 

she hits the ground running, this is one of the very first issue that 

she raises. 

But again, I’m going to read all of the testimony, and I appreciate all of your—and Chris, thanks for having the hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, thank you very much. Chairman—or Commissioner Pitts—and Chairman too. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. For the record, Joe Pitts is Chairman of the Health 

Subcommittee, one of the most important committees in Congress, 

on the Energy and Commerce Committee, but he’s also a Commissioner for the Helsinki Commission. 

Mr. PITTS. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the testimony I was able to hear. Unfortunately, we had a series of votes. We had to run to the floor, so I missed some of it. 

And—but I appreciate the questions focused on the kidnapping 

issue. 

Caroline Doss, how does this issue fit into the wider context of 

what is happening today regarding the new constitution and the 

joint cooperation of secular and religious civil society leaders? 

31

Ms. DOSS. Unfortunately, as you all may be aware, Article II of 

the constitution very clearly states that Islamic law is the primary 

source of legislation, so that when you do have a conflict, that’s actually what winds up winning out. So when you do have a situation 

where you have a Muslim who would like to convert to Christianity, that is the legislation that they actually refer to. 

So it’s having that secular constitution and removing things from 

the constitution such as that basically invalidates the freedom to 

choose and freedom of religion. That’s obviously something that 

will help the Egyptian society move forward. 

There is actually a special paper actually that was written on the 

basic provisions in the constitution—OK, excellent—great. 

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Chairman, without objection, I would like to submit for the record this paper she’s referring to. It’s entitled ‘‘Freedom, Dignity, Social Justice: Basic Provisions in the Constitution,’’ 

and it’s signed by human rights NGOs—27 signatories. If you could 

enter that into the record. You may proceed. You may proceed with 

your——

Ms. DOSS. And that—I think obviously this would provide a 

much more detailed analysis of the improvements that need to be 

made to the constitution to make it more secular. 

Mr. PITTS. What kind of activity is occurring from those who are 

not extremist in relation to the new constitution that will soon be 

written? Can you comment on that? 

Ms. DOSS. I really, honestly, haven’t seen any support to make 

this—to make it more of a secular state. I haven’t—I mean, obviously, there are moderates out there, but they are not the strong 

voice. And the stronger voice are—is those of the extremists. 

Mr. PITTS. For any of you, what do you see in terms of trends 

relating to minorities possibly fleeing Egypt, like what happened in 

Iraq? What would you recommend to the U.S. Government and 

other international bodies regarding that? 

Mr. MAHER. If you open to the door today for immigration, you 

will get 12 million. 

Mr. PITTS. You get what? 

Mr. MAHER. Twelve million Copts who want to come. 

Mr. PITTS. Twelve million. 

Ms. DOSS. I agree with Mr. Maher. I’ve been seeing—it seems 

like an exodus. I don’t have room in my office anymore in the file 

cabinets—we’re actually piling up in boxes for files for people who 

are just dying to get out. And it isn’t just the lower class or the 

middle class anymore. Now you’re seeing the upper class wanting 

and needing to leave, but they’re leaving on EB5s, which are investor visas because obviously they have the financial backing to do 

something like that. 

So to the average person who would like to get out and can get 

out, perhaps maybe easing up on visas, visas to Christians in the 

U.S. Embassy—there are a lot of Christians who are horribly persecuted and need to get but can’t get out and are denied visas in 

the U.S. Embassy. 

Mr. PITTS. Now, earlier, your written testimony refers to a security threat earlier this year to the Coptic community in the United 

States. Would you elaborate on that? 

32

Ms. DOSS. Yes. One of the attachments to the package that was 

submitted was very shockingly a terror threat that was posted on 

the Mujahedeen electronic network, which is a jihadi forum group 

also connected with al-Qaida. And on it in Arabic, and there’s an 

attached translation, you see a list of Coptic churches throughout 

Egypt with their telephone numbers and a list of churches—Coptic 

churches—outside of Egypt, including here in the United States. 

And at the bottom of that list is how to make a bomb out of a Pepsi 

can, out of a water bottle, how to propel it, and how to successfully 

bomb a church. 

Due to this threat, the security on the churches in the United 

States was heightened, and this was before Christmas, January 7, 

2011. Personally, I recall attending these meetings where security 

officials briefed the churches in the New York and Pennsylvania 

and New Jersey area on how they should increase their security. 

The archdiocese, for example, had a helicopter flying above. Some 

of the churches had bomb-sniffing dogs go through them. That isn’t 

something we should have to deal with here in the United States. 

This list includes churches in the United States, which means 

there’s a spillover from the terrorism that is happening in Egypt 

to here in the United States. So this is actually something that’s 

hitting us home here that we should really be concerned about. 

These are, I think, what they call soft targets, things that we don’t 

expect terrorists will target, places filled with people and inside the 

United States where there’s normally no security. So it’s—it’s an 

issue I think that the United States needs to address because if we 

allow this extremism to grab hold of Egypt there’s a very high likelihood it will spill over here. 

Mr. MAHER. May I add something, please? 

Mr. PITTS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MAHER. Because the same thing is happening in Europe and 

in France. I can talk about France since it’s where I’m living. There 

was a list of all the churches in Paris, about—there are eight of 

them—and their addresses, and then a list of my friends in the 

Coptic associations which are targeted as dangerous for Islam. And 

this happened at the same time after the Alexandria bombing. And 

because of that, the minister of interior—the French minister—he 

insisted to come on the Christmas Eve, which is the 6th of January, to us to be present at the church as a symbol. And on the second day on Christmas all the churches had been surrounded by 

trucks of security. So this is also—you know, what’s happening in 

the states is happening in France, happening in Europe. 

Ms. DOSS. Mr. Maher raises a good point, if I may say. There 

were a list of 70 names of Coptic individuals who were deemed enemies of Islam throughout the world, actually, in the United States 

and in Canada. I myself happen to be on that list, and got a home 

visit from an FBI agent telling me I’m on this and if anything 

strange should happen, please feel free to give us a call. I know 

that Canada took the threat more serious and actually investigated 

and it was all over the newspaper there. But the United States is 

aware of that, and that’s also, again, evidence that this is spilling 

over because they’re actually threatening people that are not even 

from Egypt and their angry at the fact that they’re speaking out 

on this issue. 

33

Mr. PITTS. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I didn’t hear in the testimony, 

if any of you could comment, is there evidence that these 

kidnappings or the seizing the girl for forced marriage is being 

used as far as extortion from some of the Christian Coptic businessmen? Are you aware of anything like that happening in Egypt? 

In other words, if they say give us $30,000 and we’ll give her back 

to you. Is that kind of thing happening? 

Mr. MAHER. Not so much. These are a part of some messages. 

They called a father and they didn’t ask him money, they told him 

leave the village, leave Egypt, and maybe you will get your girl 

back. The mother I talked to received phone calls asking for money, 

but not made very seriously because if it was only a question of 

money, she would have done everything to get her girl back. It’s 

not a question of getting money, it is a question of Islamizing, 

humiliating, and part of the strategic plan to get Egypt as Muslim, 

Islamic country within an empire of—Caliphate empire coming 

back again in the world. 

Ms. CLARK. I would agree, Mr. Pitts. The kidnappings, forced 

conversions and forced marriages do not seem to—do not appear to 

be, based on my evidence as well, on any commercial motive but 

rather an ideological motive. 

Mr. PITTS. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very important 

hearing. I hope the appropriate agencies of our government are notified of the testimony we’ve gotten today. 

Mr. SMITH. Without a doubt they will. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. And thank you, Commissioner Pitts. We are joined by 

the distinguished gentlelady from Florida, the Chairwoman of the 

House Committee on Foreign Affairs. And I would note, yesterday 

after 2 days of markup of the Foreign Relations Reauthorization 

Act, with her strong support, we approved a very strongly worded 

resolution calling for religious freedom for Coptic Christians with 

a particular emphasis on disappeared and abducted and kidnapped 

Coptic girls and young women. And Michele Clark had just said, 

Madam Chair, that thousands of Coptic girls go missing or are abducted every year. And that is absolutely underappreciated, if—

being met with indifference by so many at the State Department 

that it is mind boggling. So I yield to the——

HON. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R–27) A MEMBER IN CONGRESS 

FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Well, thank you very much, Chairman 

Smith. And as the Chairman had pointed out, yesterday in our full 

Committee on Foreign Affairs we concluded last night robust days 

of markup, debate and adoption of many measures that deal with 

security for young girls around the world. No issue is more pressing than this horrific pattern of kidnapping and torture and forced 

marriages of Coptic Christian girls in Egypt and the fear that it 

will spread elsewhere. 

Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Smith, who Chairs the Africa, Global Health and Human Rights Subcommittee, the Committee adopted provisions that he sponsored that seek to address 

this specific threat of Coptic Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities and we will continue to work with Chairman Smith 

34

and other congressional leaders. And in that group are the two gentlemen to my right. Congressman Wolf has been fighting on this 

issue for so many years, as has Congressman Joe Pitts. So we will 

continue to work with these fearless leaders, my colleagues on both 

sides of the aisle, to make sure that we have leverage on U.S. assistance to Egypt to compel changes on this horrific tragedy. 

And in light of the information about the linkage to activities in 

the United States that you have brought out about church bombings, et cetera, or nefarious acts against poor, innocent young ladies, I will work with the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Peter King of New York, to hold joint hearings in the Foreign Affairs Committee to investigate this—these 

horrific acts. And Chris Smith, Frank Wolf, and Joe Pitts have 

been leading the charge in Congress—as you know, that’s the reason that you’re here on this subject—for many years. And, yes, 

there can be random acts of violence in every country; no one is immune to that. But this is totally different—this is orchestrated, this 

is approved because these horrific acts cannot be—cannot take 

place every day in Egypt unless the Egyptian authorities look 

away. 

And this is the difference between a random act, let’s say, here 

in the United States of police brutality—that does happen—and organized acts of police brutality against civilians—that does not 

happen and is never condoned. And what is going on in Egypt for 

young, Christian Coptic young ladies, 12 years old, 11 years old, 

raped repeatedly by men and that brings dishonor to the family so 

that they are shunned, and then the father who is able to wrestle 

the girl away from this degrading and violent and abusing relationship brings the case to the authorities, and the authorities not just 

look away, they are part of the beating as well to this girl to bring 

further dishonor to her, so that she is shunned by her family and 

by her community. 

So it’s a—it’s a sad chain link of abuses and degradation of the 

integrity of a human being, and in this case innocent young girls 

who want to practice their faith. And their crime is that they’re 

Coptic Christians. They have done no wrong. And they are forced 

into these marriages, and they’re forced into conversions and given 

no respect for their human rights. It is—it is shocking, it is appalling, and what’s appalling is not just that it happens to one or 

two—that would be shameful enough, but that it’s a pattern and 

it’s a repeated pattern. 

And I’m glad that we have congressional leaders, like the ones 

here, who are bringing focus to this issue and, as I’m sure that 

Congressman Smith has pointed out, through his leadership he has 

the reauthorization bill that’s coming up before our Committee in 

the fall. And so we’re dealing with the Coptic Christian girls’ issue 

as a trafficking issue. We’re dealing with it as an abuse of human 

rights issue. And we will make sure that we can continue to shine 

congressional light and human light on this horrific problem. 

And we have a lot of funds that go to many countries, and these 

are tough economic times here at home. So if we are to help other 

countries so that they can become prosperous societies, therefore 

good neighbors and people who follow human rights and universally accepted human rights, then let’s be careful about the way we 

35

allocate funds and let’s look at issues of whether these countries 

are cooperating in terms of respecting religious minorities and respecting the rights of girls to blossom into young women freely and 

without this forced coercion and these forced marriages and forced 

conversions. 

So I know that our Committee will be hard at work on this issue 

because we have Chris Smith in our Committee. And I thank Congressman Pitts and Congressman Wolf who have been working 

tirelessly on this. So your words and your testimony will be heeded 

by the members of our Committee. And I thank the gentleman for 

the opportunity to stop by. And Congresswoman—she was sneaky, 

I did not see you there. And one of our freshmen Members, Renee 

Ellmers, who was a standout member last night in our marathon 

markup who stood up on behalf of all of the human rights victims 

throughout the world. And we should not make the Christian Coptic young girls in Egypt an exception to that protection that we 

must give them. So thank you, Congresswoman Ellmers. I would 

have pointed you out; I just didn’t look this way. 

Thank you, Mr. Smith, for this time. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. I want to thank the distinguished Chairwoman of our 

full Committee. It was a marathon session. And I thank her for 

being here, and for so strongly backing the amendment dealing 

with Coptic Christians and especially Coptic women who are being 

coerced and put into forced marriages. Thank you so much for your 

leadership on that. Thank you. 

I would like to now yield to Renee Ellmers from North Carolina 

who chairs the subcommittee—one of the subcommittees on the 

Small Business Committee. She’s also on Foreign Affairs as the 

distinguished young lady from Florida just said, and on the Ag 

committee, and has really become a rising star overnight in the Republican Party. 

HON. RENEE L. ELLMERS (R–2) A MEMBER IN CONGRESS 

FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA 

Ms. ELLMERS. [Laughter.] I don’t know about that. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be here, and I came for a few minutes just—you know, Congressman Smith is just—he is a heroic 

figure for us here in Congress. He has been fighting for human 

rights issues across the world for years. And we look up to him so 

much, he is such a voice for us, as is Ileana. She is wonderful. It’s 

great to be in the presence and working with those individuals who 

value life at every level. And we will continue that fight as I move 

forward. It’s an honor for me as a freshman. 

I am—I am just one of many very strong pro-life fighters for freedom around the world and especially women’s rights and so this is 

such a wonderful opportunity for me to be here and listen, at least 

for a few minutes, to what you have to say. Thank you so much 

for coming, and giving us this personal face to this issue that’s happening because this is one of those areas that so many just are not 

aware of. And when we bring these things to light, everyone wins. 

And we want very much to help in this situation and to eradicate 

this terrible, terrible crime that continues. So thank you for being 

with us today. 

36

Mr. SMITH. [Off mic] Ellmers, thank you very much. And let me 

just ask some final questions, then go to Mr. Wolf, if you have 

a——

First, if I could, any of our panelists, Egypt is a party to 

CEDAW, the Convention Against All Forms of Discrimination 

Against Women. It’s a party to the Genocide Convention, and also, 

obviously, is held up for periodic review before the Human Rights 

Council. The United States certainly is a party to the Genocide 

Convention. And my question would be, have any of those treaty 

bodies investigated? Has there been an attempt to get a special 

rapporteur, for example, designated to go and look at Coptic church 

discrimination and especially this horrific abuse, which I am 

shocked that any Muslim cleric could in any way be indifferent to? 

Kidnapping is an egregious crime. Human trafficking is among 

the worst crimes on the face of the earth. This does not put a good 

face on Islam to think that there’s either indifference to or acquiescence and perhaps even enabling and party to these kinds of 

abuses. So my question would be, at the United Nations, CEDAW, 

Genocide Convention—has the United States done anything vis-avis this, or any other regional body? 

And finally, do you know of any Muslim clerics, imams for example, who have spoken out against the abduction and forced 

Islamitization? Now, let me remind everyone that the definition of 

the—in part, pertinent part—of the Genocide Convention is that it 

is the deliberate and systematic destruction in whole or in part of 

an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. It seems to me forced 

Islamitization, and that’s not just of the woman but any children 

that she bears, clearly would fit any definition of genocide against 

the Copts in Egypt. 

And finally, Michele Clark, with regards—you were talking earlier in your opening comments about force, fraud, and coercion and 

obviously trafficking fits this—this fits the trafficking definition as 

to what’s going on. You say, and I think with emphasis, it’s no 

longer an allegation, it’s a fact. It’s now, what do we do with that 

fact? And I’m wondering if you could speak to what happens to underage girls, because you know the definition and you are very 

much a part of all of this—Palermo Protocol, our own Trafficking 

Victims Protection Act, any woman who has not attained the age 

of 18 fits the definition of trafficking. There need be no element of 

force, fraud or coercion, although obviously it only adds exclamation points if there is. 

And also, for Dr. Clark, Egypt in 2010 moved from the watch list 

to Tier 2—amazingly. With all of this going on, I find that shocking. One of the recommendations for Egypt in the TIP Report is for 

implementation of the 2010 trafficking law, which is one of the reasons why they were moved down. It was a hope rather than based 

on real, tangible actions on the ground. Does this trafficking law, 

in Egypt, include any body or mechanism such as a commission or 

special office to receive reports of trafficking or child marriage or 

this whole forced issue of abducting young Coptic girls? 

So it’s a number of questions. Please, all of you take a shot. 

Ms. CLARK. I’ll begin because I can—I can answer—look to some 

of the specific ones. As Mr. Maher and I have indicated, Mr. Chairman, the issue of abductions and forced marriages occurs regardVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
37

less of age. There’s documented evidence of young girls as young 

as 11 and 12 or 16 and 17. Obviously childbearing age is one of the 

primary considerations in this situation since, as you said, the objective is part of—one of the objectives is a war of attrition. And 

so women who can bear Muslim children are particularly targeted. 

To my knowledge, no, this is not being specifically addressed in 

Egypt by the various anti-trafficking bodies that exist. There is no 

particular focus on this in large part because the issue of this as 

a trafficking instance remains disputed. I’ve indicated that we need 

to remove the word ‘‘allegation.’’ It doesn’t help any of us, and evidence is now consistent with anecdotal reports that I believe we 

can and we should remove the word. 

The challenge, as we faced throughout the history of the antitrafficking movement, is to what—to what extent are the young 

women in collusion with this situation. But—and the answer is, 

blatantly, not at all. They do not want to go along with these—with 

these instances. They have no idea what they’re consenting to. A 

commercial exchange does not have to be present to make a case 

of trafficking. These women are being exploited for ideological gain, 

but the protocol—but nowhere does the protocol of Palermo to 

which the U.S. is signature—signatory, for example, stipulate that 

it’s—that nonfinancial gain is not part of trafficking. So this fits 

the definition. It needs to be pursued as such. 

I believe that—CEDAW—I have no documentation that it’s being 

preserved, and I will leave the genocide issue to my more capable 

colleagues. 

Mr. MAHER. At each meeting in Geneva, on different occasions, 

the position of the Egyptian Government was always to say we are 

doing our best; the Coptic problem does not exist. The government 

never recognized that there is something called Copts in Egypt suffering with injustice or what they call confessional disputes. You 

know, when there is a church burnt, you can find the perpetrators; 

everyone knows who they are. But they are transformed into reconciliation sessions: People coming together, and the victim just 

doesn’t use any lawyer, and the perpetrators just go away. 

The government never put in place something to solve the problem because they never recognized that there was a problem. So if 

there is no problem, why the different commissions or genocide 

from United Nations Commissions or—and so on, would act? Now 

more Muslim liberals are standing up and asking the military 

council, the government, to recognize that there is a problem, and 

unless this will be solved, the country will continue to go down and 

down. 

Ms. DOSS. I am actually not aware of any body taking any particular action. But I can say that personally, I did meet with someone in January 2010, after the Nag Hammadi attack, in the genocide department at the United Nations, and I actually did present 

them with a package that presented evidence of genocide, but we 

haven’t heard anything back from them. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Wolf? 

Mr. WOLF. Just one question, but before I do, I think a lot of the 

blame [off mic]——

Mr. SMITH. Your microphone? 

38

Mr. Wolf. A lot of the blame though was really in this Congress, 

and this administration and previous administrations. Again, if you 

go to look at the lobbyists who worked long and hard to lobby for 

Egypt over the years——

Mr. MAHER. Yes. 

Mr. WOLF. Those administrations have advocated for Mubarak, 

and there have been amendments on the floor, and Dave Obey 

tried to offer one, and everyone got up to say what a great friend 

Mubarak was or this. 

We have given them over $50 billion. There will be an amendment to strike this when it comes up. There will be an amendment 

with regard to the foreign operations funding. And so when you 

look at who are lobbying for these people, they fundamentally—it’s 

that a lot of the blame rests right here in the U.S. Congress. Go 

back and look at the debates. 

I can be in the Appropriations Committee where we have people 

come back and say they just got back from a CODEL and Mubarak 

was such a wonderful man, he did all these wonderful things and 

we ought not condition it. So really I think there ought to be some 

complaints and direction on both the previous administrations, Republican and Democrat. 

When I was in Egypt 3 weeks ago, I couldn’t help but notice—

I was in the Embassy. As I walk down the hall, all the pictures 

of all the former Presidents with a very large, big smile with who? 

Mubarak. They’re all in; they just put out a new book—the Embassy put out a new book. President Obama’s on the cover, and it 

shows all of the previous people, Republican and Democrat, who 

have been with this administration. 

So a lot of the fault lies here, and we’ll see what the spine is with 

this Congress when these issues are offered because I think there’s 

a lot of blame right here in River City and be—by Republicans and 

Democrats. The Coptic Christians—and frankly I don’t want to see 

the Coptic Christians leave Egypt—Egypt and the Middle East 

without Christians it will not be the Middle East, and for too long 

people up here and in previous administrations have been reluctant 

to advocate for those who are being persecuted because they’re 

Christians, whether it be in Afghanistan, whether it be in Pakistan, whether it be in Egypt and all over. 

The two questions that I have: How many convictions have there 

been over the last several years? Do you have any? And how many 

occasions do you know where the American Embassy has advocated 

for these cases? Because generally when there’s a problem, our 

members go to the Embassy, they advocate for us. So how many 

convictions do you know have been—cases are brought in the Egyptian courts and how many times has the American Embassy participated and been involved in any different cases? 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Wolf. There’s—there have 

been—in the 50 cases I was involved with personally, there were 

two investigations. Neither investigation resulted in any legal process. So, there are no convictions resulting as of—as of complaints 

to the effective kidnappings, forced marriages and forced conversions of Coptic Christian women. To my knowledge also and according to my research, the U.S. Embassy has not advocated on behalf 

of these women. 

39

Mr. WOLF. One last thing, Mr. Chairman, as you have this 

record, I urge you to send it to Leon Panetta. Our military has a 

very good relationship—in fact, I think our military has a better relationship and more clout with the Egyptian Government and the 

Egyptian military than does our State Department. And I think 

Leon Panetta—one of the recommendations I made is that Leon 

Panetta send some top generals over, who have relationships with 

their generals, to put some of these things on the table. 

Thank you for your testimony. I will read it all and, Chris, 

thanks for having the hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Wolf, thank you very much. 

Commissioner Pitts, do you have any——

Mr. PITTS. There you go. Thanks. 

Just one question on the problem we’ve encountered in the past, 

raised with the former Egyptian Government and that is the problem of the government-issued ID cards, including a reference to the 

bearer’s religious affiliation. Victims have discovered their national 

ID card designates them as Muslim, even though they’ve converted, 

and subsequent children that they may have, likewise automatically designated on their cards. And conversion from Islam is considered to be an act of apostasy. Can you just expound a little bit 

on the implication of this problem for the victims? Any of you. 

Mr. MAHER. I can give you an example. Maher el-Gohary this is 

one; Mohammed Hegazy is another one. But these are two people 

that dared saying publicly that they converted from Muslim to 

Christianity. Mohammed Hegazy asked the court to officially 

change his religion from Muslim to Christian. It was ruled at different levels of courts and was refused. 

Maher el-Gohary is another one—was 16 years old [inaudible] 

today, he also dared going to the court and asking to change his 

identity card and was finally refused. But, in between, there was 

a fatwa from the mosque publicly, on the microphones, saying 

wherever you find him, kill him and, you know, you don’t go—in 

your—you go to paradise. 

So, for 3 years, he had to go from one place to another. I met 

him; I know his testimony in detail; and he went from one place 

to another. His daughter is 16 years old—now, it’s almost 3 years, 

she hasn’t been to school. After the revolution, they succeeded to 

go out. Before, they confiscated his passport; he has been beaten; 

and he was not allowed to go away. And then he left to Syria because he didn’t have a visa to go, came to France, and now he’s in 

Germany. And he would like to come to the States because his wife 

is in the United States, and he’s waiting for all the process to be 

done in order to, you know, to come to see her, his wife. But this—

just to see, you know, what the mentality is—what’s happened to 

the kidnapped girls is an [inaudible] of the Egyptian society as Mr. 

Mubarak left it, as he managed to give a false image about his 

country as he managed to have the United States put $50 billion 

for what? The result is to bring the Muslim Brotherhood, the 

most—you know, the most radicals. 

So our pledge as a Copt today is please do something in order 

to delay the elections, not that the Egyptian liberals, the Muslim 

liberals get—and other parties have the power to have their place 

and not only give the place to the Muslim Brotherhood. The early—

40

the early election in September or November will bring the Muslim 

Brotherhood and many—the Middle East doesn’t need that. [Inaudible] democratic election. It’s only [inaudible] not as U.S. history [inaudible] the Constitution and see what it will come. 

Will it be a country where the religion is [inaudible] or will they 

say [inaudible] that the Shari’a law and become like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and so on? If it is, Egypt is Egyptstan, then, you 

know, the financial aid should stop immediately. 

If they want to go to another country, there is no place for religion in the constitution. That is—the question is not to hold a 

democratic election as a [inaudible] elections. Or they will just, you 

know, delayed it again [inaudible] to delay and again. We don’t 

hold elections now. We want the liberals. There are a lot of good 

Muslim liberals. We want them to work with the Copts and other 

Muslims and to develop a good constitution for a better Egypt, a 

model Egypt for tomorrow. 

Mr. PITTS. Michele. 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you. Just very briefly to answer your question, Mr. Pitts, on what are the implications, if a young woman returns to her family after having been kidnapped and forcibly converted and forcibly married, the consequences in her life are as follows. She cannot marry within her own church because she’s formally listed as a Muslim. So she can’t resume her life. Her life is 

to live—to be ever lived in limbo. 

Furthermore, if—and as I have talked to such women, if she does 

marry, her marriage is illegal because she’s a Muslim woman and 

not allowed to marry a Christian man. Consequently, children that 

would be born to that couple would be illegitimate children and 

would not be given a national identity. And finally, as a Muslim 

on her identity card, she would not be given—she would not be allowed to be buried in a Christian cemetery. So in fact she is forcibly for the rest of her life denied any public relationship with the 

thing that is most precious to her, which is her faith. 

Mr. PITTS. Now, because of the lack of religious freedom and 

some calling for Egypt to be designated as a country of particular 

concern under our International Religious Freedom Act, do you 

have any thoughts on that designation? What’s your view of this 

question? 

Ms. CLARK. Well, I’ve carved out a little bit of a niche for myself, 

so anything I say is based on this. But certainly if you deny the 

right of a woman to have a voice in the most fundamental aspects 

of her life—marriage, the birth of her children and a place to be 

buried—then I really challenge a country’s position on religious 

freedom. 

Mr. PITTS. So you would favor them being designated a country 

of particular concern. 

Ms. CLARK. As I said, based on what I know now, it would appear I—it would appear. 

Mr. PITTS. Yes, any other views or comments? Do you agree with 

that? 

Ms. DOSS. I absolutely do agree with that. It does deserve to be 

labeled as a country of particular concern. I think—I think actually 

it’s long overdue. 

Mr. PITTS. Yes. 

41

Ms. DOSS. Based on what we have seen in the trends in just our 

own reports here, it should have been labeled as a country of particular concern a long time ago. But for our relationship and their 

strong lobby, we haven’t, unfortunately, seen it until recently. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. 

Mr. MAHER. Just impunity is not admissible. Impunity of the 

people who burn churches, who kill—who kill Christians, impunity 

of the rapists or all this—you know, this put Egypt just in this category. 

Mr. PITTS. Yes. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this important hearing, for your 

leadership on the issue. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Pitts, thank you so much for your leadership because, as I said earlier, when it comes to Coptic Christians, 

Frank Wolf, Joe Pitts, they work it every single day. And so I want 

to thank—and let me just say one brief comment on what Chairman Wolf said earlier. I had met myself with Mubarak in Cairo, 

and every year he would come at least once a year to the United 

States. And whenever we—and I wasn’t the only one—would raise 

with great documentation human rights abuses against Coptic 

Christians, he would lean back and say, talk to Boutros-Ghali who 

was, I guess, at least a nominal Coptic Christian. And I said, no, 

we’re talking to you, Mr. President. 

But we would still be diverted to Boutros-Ghali, who would then 

take all the information and say everything is just fine. 

So we know clearly that was not true, but it seems to be getting 

significantly better. I have just a couple of final questions. And any 

final comments our distinguished witnesses would like to make, 

please do. 

How should we be pressing Saudi Arabia or others on what 

you’ve cited in your testimony as the financial and philosophical 

support for this horrific and barbaric practice of kidnapping and 

forcing women into marriages? 

Mr. MAHER. I would think it doesn’t come from the Government 

of Saudi Arabia. The problem is it comes from individuals. And I 

think it’s very hard to—you know, maybe the message should be 

to the Government of Saudi Arabia, saying they have to press their 

citizens in order to stop it. But it doesn’t come from the Saudi Government. 

Mr. PITTS. Anybody else. 

Mr. SMITH. And—would you like to make any final comment before we conclude this hearing, any of our distinguished witnesses? 

Ms. DOSS. If I may make just one comment——

Mr. SMITH. [Off mic.] 

Ms. DOSS [continuing]. Going back to the issue of the pattern and 

practice and the impunity, the perpetrators of these crimes, a lot 

of them, we’re very well aware of who they are, the perpetrators 

of the crimes and the attacks against the churches, the individuals 

that participated in the tortures in state security. What do we do 

when these people come and apply for visas to the United States? 

Is there some sort of a mechanism we could use to prevent them 

from entering the United States? Is there some sort of a tool? I 

mean, we know who they are. We have their names. 

42

I remember back in 2007—if I may just make a comment about 

this. It was January 2007. The—this extremist Islamic cleric was 

granted a visa by the United States to enter the United States. 

This man openly on his web site supports jihad. And our government gave him a visa to the United States. I had done an interview 

on MSNBC Live and read the quotes right off of this guy’s Web 

site. They gave him a visa to come here. 

And at one point in time I heard—I don’t know if it’s true or 

not—that he was actually exiled from Egypt. So this radical person 

now has been given access to the United States. How do we protect 

ourselves from people like this? They’re known torturers. They’re 

known offenders and violators of human rights. Maybe we should 

have some sort of a reporting mechanism to put these people on a 

watch list. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you so much, Mr. Smith, again, for holding 

this hearing. So many of us are so grateful to you and, again, for 

your sustained leadership in—on behalf of women and children. I’d 

like to conclude by drawing a few lessons from the fight against 

human trafficking, where after 11 years now in the United States 

and around the world, we’ve begun to see tiny but nonetheless sustained measures. 

One of the challenges that we must face—and it sounds as if 

you’re really heading in that direction—is to name the offense. We 

have to say this is what’s happening, this is the crime that’s occurring, this is how we know it, this is what you are doing, this is who 

it’s being done to. In the absence of naming a crime, everything 

else can be—just can dissolve into rhetoric and lofty statements 

that eventually become forgotten. 

The second thing we need to do that we’ve learned as a result 

of seeing how the TIP Report has had—has taken effect is to follow 

through with teeth. Removing the word ‘‘allegation’’ is one important message. Challenging status on tier levels is another important way that the U.S. Government can go after this. We have to 

show that our naming of the offense also carries with it the 

strength and determination to follow through. 

The third thing that we can do is continue, as you’ve begun in 

this hearing, to disseminate the—knowledge and information about 

what is taking place. The more the veil of mystery, shame and stigma of a crime is removed, the greater a potentially victimized people can feel empowered and the greater the anti-trafficking, the advocacy community can come together on behalf of prospective victims. 

And then finally we can empower the Coptic community itself to 

take ownership, knowing that actions on their part will be protected and not subject to government reprisal. We can encourage 

the distribution of information. In fact, that should be perhaps an 

object of funding. We can encourage the protection of shelters and 

safe houses, and we can ensure the viability of families which seek 

to take back their young women and help them to establish their 

lives according to freedom of conscience, religion and the hopes and 

dreams of every other young girl. 

Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Dr. Clark—Mr. Maher. 

43

Mr. MAHER. [Inaudible] just to take the opportunity of the revolution of today and give as many messages to the military council 

and the government as we can. They are—they recognize they don’t 

have political experience. They are ready, I think, to get recommendations. So the external messages of the international community must be clear. Only external, outside pressure will make 

things move. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. Thank you all. 

You know, Mr. Wolf, Chairman Wolf had a very good point about 

military-to-military, and we will follow up on that—and I know he 

will as well—with incoming Department of Defense Secretary Panetta. 

And I would also point out that recently a group from Egypt was 

here in town looking for debt relief. I came to that meeting and 

talked about Coptic Christians and went through with documentation abuses committed against—including the horrific practice of 

kidnapping Coptic girls. I was met with denials, denials, and more 

denials. 

In the room was Toby Moffett, one of the leading lobbyists—

former Members of Congress. And so I would suggest that part of 

our outreach needs to be to the handlers of the account of Egypt 

here in town who carry huge amounts of influence, get paid very 

handsomely for that. And they should not be indifferent to or 

enablers of this horrific crime against women and crimes against 

humanity that are being perpetrated against Coptic Christians. 

So I—this is a hearing in a series of hearings, and I can assure 

you we will have a legislative strategy and we will only—this is—

your information. I remember when I took some journalism classes. 

The three As of journalism are accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. And 

I believe that deeply when it comes to human rights, and you three 

have been truth tellers, giving us the accurate picture of what is 

going on on the ground and very, very useful suggestions as to how 

to proceed. And the Commission cannot thank you enough for your 

insights, counsel and wisdom and for being here. 

So thank you so much. This hearing is adjourned. [Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

44

APPENDICES

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CAROLINE DOSS, ESQ., VICE 

PRESIDENT, COPTIC SOLIDARITY 

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of Congress and Commissioners, thank you for holding this important hearing and for the 

opportunity to testify and focus on the issues related to the Christian minority in Egypt, particularly as many of these issues appear 

to be ignored in current policy considerations. 

There are a number of issues minorities have faced in Egypt over 

the years including violent attacks, lack of justice against those 

who perpetrate attacks, discrimination in the workplace and in society at large, inequality under the law, hate propaganda in the 

media, and long term issues related to peacefully practicing one’s 

faith and worshipping freely. 

Numerous media articles and reports document the discrimination and violence against Christians and other minorities under the 

Mubarak regime. There was great hope among minorities, especially as the Egyptian people stood side by side in Tahrir Square 

calling for Mubarak to leave, that a post-Mubarak Egypt would 

provide more freedom and peace for minorities. Tragically, that has 

not occurred. Instead, there is clear evidence of an increasing pattern and practice, by commission and omission, of governmentsanctioned persecution of Coptic Christians. 

VIOLENT ATTACKS

Under this new government, the lack of protection and security 

for many Egyptians, and particularly for minorities, is clear. Since 

the fall of Mubarak, violent physical attacks against Christians 

have been implemented by the military, extremists, government officials, and verbally via government-paid religious leaders. 

• Military: the military has attacked monasteries and protestors 

and has failed to intervene to protect victims under attack 

• Extremists: the extremists have attacked individuals, at least 

four churches, and many Christians’ homes and places of business. 

Afterwards, the attackers frequently celebrated by chanting ‘‘Allah 

Akbar.’’ (Please see links: http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=edVRFUOSJAw, http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=hiol9cPm-4g, http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=kKC9pCitXHc&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=4bnmkQ67qYY) Reports suggest that in one incident the 

attackers even handed out chocolates in the street to celebrate the 

violence. 

• Government officials: The Governor of El Minya demolished 10 

homes because the owners refused to donate a portion of their land 

to the building of a mosque. In addition, he also attempted to demolish a church building but was interrupted by Coptic protestors. 

Both events occurred on February 28, 2011. 

• Government-sponsored mosques: In Egypt, the government is 

responsible for the salaries of Imams and other religious leaders in 

the mosques. Some of these same state employees have been openly 

and very publicly involved in inciting their followers to violence 

45

against minorities, particularly Christians. The U.S. Commission 

on International Religious Freedom, in November of 2010 raised 

concerns that ‘‘incitement to violence in Egyptian media and government-funded mosques is contributing to increasing sectarian 

tensions.’’ More recent eyewitness accounts from those leaving 

Egypt suggest that this incitement continues to be a serious problem. 

With your permission, I would like to submit for the Record a list 

of attacks since the uprising in February of this year. This list reflects attacks that occurred after the horrific Alexandria church 

bombing in January. 

WOMEN AND GIRLS

In addition to the violence aimed at communities, homes and 

places of worship, as my colleague Michele Clark has testified, 

there have been a number of cases of the kidnapping. rape, forced 

conversion and/or forced marriage of Coptic women and girls. The 

victims include minor children, as well as married and single 

women. Further, there have been open threats to harm any women 

walking in public who are not veiled. This threat was disseminated 

by Salafis, who could be seen as the ‘‘Taliban’’ of Egypt (they have 

even received money from Saudi Arabia). Throughout the month of 

March, Salafis told Egyptians that on March 29, 2011, anyone not 

wearing a veil would be attacked. According to the Egyptian Center 

for Women’s Rights, for the first time in Minufiya governorate,

‘‘350 Salafists confronted the state Jaw and surrounded a 

house of a woman . . . forced her out of her house, threw 

her house’s furniture onto the street, burned the house 

and threatened to kill her if she returned to her home. 

They did so claiming that her conduct was immoral and 

dishonorable . . . The Egyptian Center for Human Rights 

received a number of complaints from several women on 

receiving threats on Facebook that they will be ‘punished’ 

if they do not wear the legitimate clothes. The threats 

mentioned a time limit of Tuesday, March 29, 2011. This 

matter raised panic among a large number of women in 

Egypt. They are asking whether it will be safe to go to 

schools, universities and work or whether they will be attacked.’’ (Press release from March 28, 2011)

These threats against women were focused on both Muslims and 

Christians, despite the fact that Christians are not Muslims and 

therefore should not be subject to the enforcement of wearing a veil 

in public. Mr. Chairman, the veil issue is deeply disturbing as it 

brings to mind the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan and their 

attacks against non-veiled women or against men who did not 

dress according to Taliban dictates. It is quite disturbing to think 

of Egypt being controlled by Taliban-style extremists, as the rich 

culture and history of Egypt would not be possible with people like 

that in control of Egyptian society. 

46

INJUSTICE AND IMPUNITY

Many are concerned by the continued pattern of impunity afforded to violent extremists and attackers, as well as by those in 

the state security services (SSI) involved in torture. More recently, 

and more publicly, security officials and the military stood by 

watching as churches were burned and destroyed and individuals 

and peaceful protestors were attacked. There is no record to date 

of any security official, SSI, military or a member of any other security apparatus, being held responsible for standing by and watching the destruction and violence. All this, despite the fact that videos of soldiers and others standing by are on YouTube and the Government could easily find out who was involved in allowing the attacks to begin, or last for much longer than necessary. Also, it is 

important to note that the ‘‘Coptic’’ issue is handled primarily 

through the state security offices - it is seen as a security issue, 

not as a political or human rights issue. 

An additional and related issue of concern is the intolerance 

against the Copts reflected when authorities, after a violent attack, 

arrest Muslims and Christians for the attacks. It has never been 

clear why Christians are arrested in these attacks. While there has 

been violence perpetrated by Christian during attacks, it has almost never been reported that the violence is anything but in selfdefense. It does not take much contemplation to realize that in a 

country like Egypt, where minorities frequently live in fear, a minority would not instigate violence or riots or property destruction 

against itself, let alone against a majority where violent extremists 

commit crimes. It is quite absurd to think otherwise. Yet, the Egyptian Government, most recently in the May 2011 Imbaba church 

attacks, arrested some Muslims and a number of Christians and 

blamed them all equally for the attacks. In another case where a 

mob of thousands attacked those involved in the opening of the St. 

Mary and St. Abraham Church one media report from May 27 reveals that a ‘‘Military court in Egypt has sentenced three Christian 

Copts to 5-years imprisonment on charges of possession of firearms 

and pocket knives. The Court released all other Muslims and Copts 

arrested following clashes on May 19.’’ (Assyrian International 

News Agency) 

Further, as was raised by Dina Guirgis In the January 2011 

hearing held by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, if on 

the rare occasions when there is an attempt to hold perpetrators 

to account, the government often forces victims into ‘‘reconciliation 

sessions’’ where justice is completely undermined and criminals are 

not punished. Such practices have continued since the fall of the 

Mubarak regime. 

The Government seems to be afraid of arresting. prosecuting and 

punishing the actual perpetrators and criminals in these attacks. 

Why? It is unclear, but with the exponential increase of the activities of extremists in Egyptian society, the Government may be 

afraid of the extremists. If this Is true, Egypt is in deep trouble. 

The Egyptian people deserve a government that governs fairly and 

transparently and brings justice where it is due. 

As a side note, it is important to raise the point that when the 

Egyptian Government discusses, or the Western media reports on, 

47

clashes in Egypt, they frequently use the term ‘‘sectarian clashes.’’ 

This terminology causes concern because it assumes that both sides 

in a clash have power. The practical reality on the ground is that 

even though the Copts are a large minority within Egypt, they do 

not instigate clashes, but some feel compelled to defend themselves 

when they are attacked. 

TORTURE AND IMPUNITY

One concern regarding impunity is that the SSI, the infamous 

state security service, which was intimately involved in torture 

under the Mubarak regime, has allegedly been disbanded and a 

new government agency has been formed. While the intent may be 

laudable, the reality is that many of the same security officials simply moved to this new organization to continue their work. Those 

involved in torture have not been brought to justice. In a number 

of firsthand accounts I have heard, the torturers gave their full 

names to the victims being tortured. As a result, it is not difficult 

to find out who the torturers are. There are torture victims 

throughout Egypt, from the minority as well as Egyptian society at 

large who, if they felt it was safe and there would be real justice, 

might come forward to name these criminals. 

ID CARDS

Yet another issue that has not changed since the Mubarak regime lost power is the unequal application of the law. This issue 

comes into play in relation to the building or repair of churches 

and in relation to the refusal to issue new government identity 

cards to those desiring to change their faith to any religion that is 

not Muslim. While there reportedly have been a few recent cases 

where a change was allowed on the ID card, changes are rare. In 

general, there is opposition by local police, government officials, 

state security officials, the courts, and by religious laws, all of 

which inspire people to harm and in some way retaliate against the 

person trying to change his or her faith identification. In one case, 

Maher El-Gohary and his daughter were forced into hiding and 

were later brutally attacked when in August 2008, he filed a lawsuit against the Egyptian Government in order to change the religion listed on his state ID card. Both he and his daughter publicly 

were branded apostates. The two fled the country. (Compass Direct 

News Service, March 21, 2011). 

CONSTITUTION

Mr. Chairman, in the very near future, a group of Egyptians will 

be drafting a new Constitution. There are disturbing signs that the 

freedoms of the Egyptian people may be more restricted and Christians and other minorities will be even less safe than they are currently. 

The next step in the Constitutional process is that a permanent 

Constitution will be written. The Muslim Brotherhood and other 

extremists want to wait until after the parliamentary elections so 

that, as they plan to control the next parliament, they can elect the 

constitutional committee from the newly elected parliamentarians. 

The secular and moderate Muslims, the Christians, and other miVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
48

norities all would like to see the elite, trained professionals of the 

country write the Constitution prior to the elections so the process 

is not hijacked by extremists. 

It is important that the U.S. and the international community 

press Egypt to live up to its human rights commitments and ensure that those commitments are enshrined in the new Constitution, not as an afterthought, but up front. It is only when there is 

a Constitution that protects the people and their fundamental 

rights and freedoms that there will be any recourse for minorities 

or any citizen who is discriminated against or persecuted to bring 

criminals to justice. I would like to draw your attention to an article by Ms. Ana Palacio, Former Foreign Affairs Minister of Spain, 

who refers to the Constitution and external pressure being successful,

‘‘Senior Editor of the Cairo weekly Watani Adel Guindy 

suggested that, without interfering in the process, the EU 

can push for ‘an unambiguous reference to full and unconditional respect of the universal human rights values [in 

Egyptian constitution] as expressed in international conventions. While such a text will be no guarantee that the 

human rights are respected, its absence will be a guarantee (as is the case today) that human rights will NOT 

be respected.’ ’’ (Article cited is ‘‘Upheaval in the Arab 

World: a (Close) Call for the European Union,’’ Ana 

Palacio, Former Foreign Affairs Minister of Spain, World 

Bank Group, p. 2, Footnote 6) 

FINANCIAL AID

While this hearing is primarily focused on the fundamental 

rights of minorities in Egypt, I would like to raise the issue of economic aid to Egypt While it may be difficult to Implement, it would 

be a very helpful tool to link aid to Egypt, including forgiveness of 

debt, to the upholding and protection of human rights norms. Some 

might see this recommendation as controversial because the Egyptian economy is not doing well, and as a result all of Egyptian society, especially the poor are suffering. However, simply giving debt 

relief or other financial aid to Egypt with no stipulations will likely 

not bring much benefit to the Egyptian people as a whole. The 

same Egyptian people who banded together in Tahrir Square to 

call for Mubarak to leave and to rally for a new, democratic and 

free Egypt deserve to benefit from any aid. 

SECURITY THREATS IN THE U.S. 

Some people have raised the idea that the violence in Egypt involves a security risk to the U.S. That might be puzzling, in light 

of the threats from Al-Qaeda and terrorists networks, but let me 

share how that threat has already come to the U.S. and could increase if extremists and Salafists are allowed free reign to impose 

their beliefs on Egyptian law and society. In the aftermath of the 

Alexandria church New Years bombing, a website run by a jihadi 

forum group issued a call to attack churches in Egypt, the Middle 

East AND churches in Europe, the U.S and other countries. Mr. 

Chairman, I would like to submit for the record the printed version 

49

of an extremist website calling for attacks on churches in the U.S 

and listing the names of those churches as well as the phone numbers and other identifying information. The original is in Arabic 

and there is an English translation. I would draw your attention 

to the photos further down the page which help would-be attackers 

design and build bombs for these church attacks. I am from the 

New York/New jersey area and prior to Orthodox Christmas, which 

is celebrated in January, our community had numerous meetings 

with regional security officials in order to ensure that our Christmas celebrations could be carried out safely. In fact, some in our 

community were afraid to attend those celebrations because of the 

threats—and these churches are not located in Egypt! 

It is deeply, deeply disturbing that even before the Salafists and 

other extremists were released from Egyptian prisons or flooded 

back into Egypt from abroad, this type of direct security threat affected the U.S. If the extremists have their way, it is increase. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

The following are recommendations for the Egyptian Government, the U.S. government, and the international community: 

Special Envoy 

• We support and strongly urge the passage of H.R. 440 and S. 

1245 which provides for the appointment of a Special Envoy for minorities in the Middle East. We also strongly urge the Administration to appoint someone to that position who is highly qualified and 

has the stature needed to ensure the issues related to minorities 

are included in the highest level of the U.S. Government, particularly during this historic transition in Egypt, Iraq and other countries in the region. 

Implementation of Justice 

• We strongly urge that the Egyptian Government bring to justice those state security officials, including the SSI, military and 

other branches, involved in the torture of Egyptian citizens. 

‘‘Further, we urge the U.S. Government to press the Egyptian 

Government to prosecute perpetrators of violence before, during 

and after the uprisings and the historic events in Egypt this year. • We also urge the U.S. Government to ban visas and travel to 

the U.S. for any government official involved in torture. While this 

may be difficult to implement immediately, the U.S. could assist in 

setting up a mechanism that would allow for torture victims to report the names of their torturers. With the proper instruments and 

processes in place to allow for confirmation that a government official is indeed involved in torture, the U.S. could easily implement 

a visa ban against these officials similar to that in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. • We strongly urge the Egyptian Government to stop arresting 

both Christians and Muslims when Christians and their property 

are attacked and instead bring the real perpetrators to justice. 

Constitution 

• We urge the U.S. Government and the international community to press the Egyptian Government to ensure that its commitVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
50

ments to international human rights norms are upheld in the 

foundational sections of the Constitution and are not undermined 

by any subsequent articles or passages. • We also urge the Egyptian Government to allow for international monitors for the upcoming elections. If the election is to 

be free and fair, there is no reason not to have election observers 

and monitors. 

Economy 

• As mentioned above, while we welcome efforts to help Egypt in 

its current economic situation, we believe that unconditional financial aid would be a strategic error—aid should be linked to Egypt’s 

human rights record in terms of constitutional stipulations, laws 

and practices over the short and medium terms. We urge the U.S 

Government, European governments and others in the international community providing financial aid to Egypt to tie that aid 

to Egypt’s upholding and protecting fundamental human rights 

norms now and in any new Constitution. 

Mr. Chairman, I again thank you for the opportunity to raise 

these concerns today. The people of Egypt, particularly the minorities, long for a society in which each is free to peacefully practice 

his or her faith and to live a life without fear. Muslims, Christians, 

and other minorities all deserve a stable, peaceful and free society. 

It is at this significant time In Egypt’s history that real change is 

possible, but I fear that change will not happen unless there is an 

exponential increase in pressure both from inside and outside 

Egypt. 

I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. 

Thank you.

51

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHELE CLARK, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, THE ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to be invited to testify once more 

on this most important issue of the disappearances, forced conversions and forced marriages of Coptic Christian women and girls. I 

would like to express my thanks to the Commission for holding this 

hearing and launching this new report. I would also like to express 

my thanks to Christian Solidarity International, and in particular 

to Dr. John Eibner, CEO, for championing this issue and sponsoring the research and writing of the report we are discussing 

here. I would also like to express my thanks to Nadia Ghaly, the 

co-author of this report, who is not able to be here today, for her 

invaluable collaboration in this effort. 

My testimony is based directly on the report introduced today, 

‘‘The Disappearance, Forced Conversions and Forced Marriages of 

Coptic Christian Women and Girls in Egypt II’’, and I would therefore like to request that the report be included along with my testimony into the record of these hearings. 

Coptic women in Egypt are disappearing from their homes, their 

schools and their jobs. They go missing while returning from 

church, picking up their children from school or traveling to the 

sick bed of an aging parent. They are often held as captives, subjected to physical and psychological abuse in the form of rapes, 

beatings, domestic labor without pay, forced marriage and conversion to Islam. Their lives, and the lives of their families, are severely damaged. 

The Egyptian government has distanced itself from any responsibility or culpability. Those who dispute these claims assert that the 

disappearances are merely willful acts of young women seeking to 

leave oppressive home environments and that there is no criminal 

activity involved. 

To investigate these claims, Christian Solidarity International 

and the Coptic Foundation for Human Rights Commissioned a report written in November 2009 which asserted that Coptic women 

and underage girls are deceptively lured into forced marriages with 

Muslim men and conversion to Islam; that the Egyptian authorities 

dismiss the criminality of such events; that the young women are 

presumed to be complicit in their disappearances; that the disappearances follow consistent patterns; that the Egyptian government rarely restores their Christian identities to women who have 

been forcibly converted to Islam. 

This report marked the beginning of renewed discussion on the 

topic, including a hearing in front of this very Commission last 

summer. 

Other US Government agencies were more skeptical. 

For example, the 2010 US Department of States Annual Trafficking in Persons Report referenced our report, and stated that 

‘‘During the reporting period, an international NGO released a report about alleged forced marriages of Coptic females in Egypt, indicating an allegation of forced prostitution, though the allegations 

have not been confirmed.’’

The 2010 Department of State’s International Religious Freedom 

Report also referred to our report, stating,

52

‘‘As in previous years, there were occasional claims of Muslim men forcing Coptic women and girls to convert to 

Islam. Reports of such cases were disputed and often included inflammatory allegations and categorical denials of 

kidnapping and rape. In November 2009 an international 

Christian advocacy group published a report regarding alleged cases of forced conversion; however, well-respected 

local human rights groups were unable to verify such cases 

and found it extremely difficult to determine whether compulsion was used, as most cases involved a female Copt 

who converted to Islam when she married a male Muslim. 

Reports of such cases almost never appear in the local 

media.’’

Before entering in the details of the new report, I would like to 

make one important point: Claims that all disappearances are the 

result of impulsive behaviors and not abduction reflect a misunderstanding of the force, fraud and coercion that are characteristic of 

the relationships between young Coptic women and girls and their 

captors. Both Nadia Ghaly and I recognize that not all disappearances are the result of abductions, that not all marriages are 

forced, and that some conversions can be consensual. We have spoken with a young woman who quite candidly left her husband because he beat her while her make Muslim neighbor was kind. She 

eventually returned to her family. 

However, and notwithstanding the ambiguity of many situations 

we encountered, we claim that it is not possible to dismiss each 

case in the 2009 report on the grounds that the girls willingly and 

left their families. 

And, since this first report, it is possible to say that stories of abductions and disappearances of Coptic women and girls are for the 

first time garnering attention in the mainstream media. On December 15, 2010, the BBC aired a documentary entitled, ‘‘Christian Minority under Pressure in Egypt.’’ In the opening scene, a father relates to the interviewer that there will be no Christmas in their 

home this year; their daughter, who loved Christmas, was abducted 

and has never returned. 

On June 15, 2011, Yasmin el Rashdi, writing New York Review 

of Books on June 15, 2011, quotes a parish priest who raises the 

issue of the disappearance of young Coptic women.

‘‘There are no sizable attacks,’’ he said, ‘‘but each week 

there are incidents of women having the cross grabbed 

from their necks as they walk in the streets. In this very 

neighborhood people are still being insulted as they leave 

church; and we still have young girls disappearing, kidnapped, being harassed for what they are wearing or for 

bearing the cross tattooed on their wrists.’’

Since the publication of our first report, the political landscape 

has changed considerably in Egypt. The Coptic community has become more vulnerable to persecution as a result of an upsurge in 

militant Islam following the overthrow of President Hosni 

Mubarkek. Emigration is increasing and asylum petitions in both 

the United States and other countries are on the rise. Young Coptic 

53

women are particularly vulnerable. Exploitation thrives in times of 

political unrest. 

Among the most vulnerable members of this beleaguered community are women and young girls. Young Coptic women are applying 

for asylum on the basis of fear of being abducted and forced to convert and marry. In September 2011, I testified in federal court as 

an expert witness in one such asylum case. Asylum was granted for 

a young Coptic woman on the basis of fear of being abducted 

should she return. Other immigration lawyers attest to recent favorable asylum decisions based on threat or fear of abduction. We 

have here, as witnesses in this hearing, two young women who 

have sought and received asylum because of abduction and fear of 

abductions. These cases are not allegations. 

A SECOND REPORT

Concerned with the escalating violence against the Copts in 

Egypt and dissatisfied with the lack of response from the US Government, Christian Solidarity International commissioned a second 

report, which we are launching here today. This new report substantiates our earlier findings. In addition, we have observed 

changes in trends and patterns, which reinforce the pre-meditation 

of the captors. 

The goal of our second report is straightforward: To continue to 

support the claims of disappearances, abductions and forced conversions and forced marriages of Coptic women in Egypt and continue to challenge the use of the term ‘‘allegation’’ in US government reports. 

The new findings in the report are based on: 

1. Interviews with four Egyptian lawyers. These lawyers provided access to claims filed by families on behalf of Coptic 

women who had disappeared as well as young women who had 

returned from a forced marriage and conversion and were attempting to regain their Christian identities; 

2. Interviews with representatives of civil society organizations; 

3. Interviews with family members of young women who 

have disappeared. Some of these individuals are represented 

by attorneys; 

4. A review of Internet sites reporting the disappearance of 

Coptic girls. The authors considered only those cases with appropriate documentation, including police reports. 

5. Interviews with women who have returned from a forced 

marriage and conversion. 

All interviews were conducted from November 16–25, 2011, in 

Cairo, Egypt. Only verifiable cases are included in this report. Each 

of these cases is verifiable through attorney files, personal interviews and police reports. The real names of young women and their 

family members and other identifying details are not published in 

this report in order to protect their identities. 

54

KEY FINDINGS

1. THE NUMBER OF DISAPPEARANCES AND ABDUCTIONS APPEAR TO BE

INCREASING. 

Exact numbers of cases throughout the country are difficult to 

come by for reasons analyzed below. However, each of the attorneys 

interviewed for this report indicated an increase in his caseload 

since January 2011. Four attorneys collectively report a total of 

over 550 cases of abductions, disappearances and petitions to restore Christian identity following abductions, forced marriages and 

forced conversions over a five-year period. Furthermore, one attorney interviewed for this report indicates first-hand knowledge of 

over 1,600 cases of Christians petitioning to have their conversions 

to Islam overturned in recent years, with 60% of this number being 

women; in other words, 960 women are petitioning to have their 

Christian identities restored. 

DATA COLLECTION CHALLENGES

There is no systematic data repository within the Coptic community documenting the disappearances of young women. Priests or 

bishops keep records of activities within their churches and communities. Attorneys maintain their own caseloads. Activists maintain different websites but there is no cross-referencing with other 

data sources. 

Families of victims do not report all cases. The police do not register all complaints filed by family members. In many cases, family 

members of missing young women reported that the police would 

not file a report until a lawyer intervened. In other cases, families 

do not file reports because they do not believe that their claims will 

be taken seriously or because they fear retribution by the authorities. Not all families are financially able to secure the services of 

an attorney; while not a guarantee of results, the presence of an 

attorney would at least enable the filing of a legitimate claim. 

2. FEWER GIRLS APPEAR TO BE RETURNING TO THEIR FAMILIES

Our 2009 report focused on young women who had returned from 

forced marriages and conversions and were struggling to regain 

their Christian identities. They reported instances of abuse and 

forced domestic servitude; one women reported being prostituted by 

her captor. Since then, there has been a discernible change in the 

dynamics of the disappearances of young Coptic women. Attorneys 

handling such cases report that fewer young women are being returned to their families. There is speculation that young women 

might be trafficked overseas, but attorneys and activists have not 

yet been able to document this phenomenon. 

3. SOCIAL MEDIA

Many families are learning about their daughters’ conversion to 

Islam through new Internet sites which document the conversion 

to Islam of Christian girls. Increasing websites are appearing 

which feature fully veiled young Coptic women and girls announcing their conversion to Islam. On the other hand, Coptic families 

55

are beginning to post announcements of disappearances also on the 

internet. 

4. MINORS AND MOTHERS OF YOUNG CHILDREN APPEAR TO BE

INCREASINGLY TARGETED. 

In addition to disappearances of single young women over the 

age of 18, lawyers report an increase in the abductions of mothers 

with young children. While the age of consent to convert to a different religion is eighteen in Egypt, there are increasing reports 

that children of mothers who are forced to convert are also registered as Muslims. Even if a mother returns to her community, 

the children are considered by law to be Muslim and will remain 

Muslim. 

5. DISAPPEARANCES ARE ORGANIZED AND PLANNED. 

Attorneys, social workers and members of the clergy interviewed 

for this and the previous report all attest to organized and systematic planning in cases of missing Coptic women. Tactics to lure 

young women into relationships follow similar patters throughout 

the country. One lawyer interviewed for this report stated that the 

same man’s name occurred in several police reports; he married 

five Christian women who subsequently converted to Islam. Family 

members report that their daughters or sisters were befriended by 

a schoolmate, a neighbor, or an older mother figure over time. Lawyers indicate that their clients report that the families of the captors benefited materially; frequently, family members were provided with new apartments or furniture, and unemployable young 

men were given jobs. 

6. ABDUCTORS TARGET VULNERABLE WOMEN AND GIRLS, AND GIRLS

IN VULNERABLE AND UNPROTECTED MOMENTS. 

The concluding observations of the UN’s Commission on the 

Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women 

(CEDAW) express concern ‘‘at the very limited information and statistics provided about vulnerable groups of women and girls’’ in 

Egypt. 

Coptic women and girls are vulnerable in the following ways: 

1. They are members of a religious minority. 

2. They come from closed, insular communities. 

3. Their minority status is the basis for legal and social discrimination 

Coptic women and girls are vulnerable because of their minority 

status, yet little effort is made by the Egyptian Government to document this vulnerability or its consequences. 

7. CAPTORS SEVER CONTACT BETWEEN VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES. 

The first task of the captor is to come between a young woman 

and members of her family. They can do this by force, taking away 

her phone and family connections. They lock her up, denying her 

any mobility. They threaten her, telling her that, even if she runs 

away, her family will never accept her; they will punish her and 

put her in a monastery. Eventually a young woman is brainwashed 

56

and believes that she will be safe only with her Muslim captor. Ultimately, she will be truly safe only if she converts to Islam. Because there is no obligation for a Christian woman who marries a 

Muslim man to convert to Islam, one attorney claims that conversion is the ultimate goal of the captivity. 

8. CAPTORS MAKE USE OF MEASURES INVOLVING FORCE, FRAUD AND

COERCION. 

A young woman consents to a glass of sugar cane juice and the 

attention of a man whose words promise a life of love, ease and 

provision. Another woman shares a with a mother who is also waiting for children after school. And a third seeks friendship and escape from a harsh and sometimes abusive home environment. Victims who have not literally been abducted nonetheless did not consent to being ripped from their family without the possibility of 

ever seeing them again; nor do they consent to being forcibly converted to a religion other than their own. They do not consent to 

a life of captivity within one small apartment, every outing supervised by a member of her new husband’s family. They said yes to 

the things that young women say yes to: friendship, romance, hope, 

a future, safety and security. It is reasonable to expect that most 

young women would respond in precisely the same way as many 

young Coptic girls responded to these offers of friendship or romance. 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

In developing recommendations for this report, the authors consulted with attorneys and civil society actors in Egypt in order to 

assess what government actions might support their efforts to protect Coptic women from falling into captivity and, as a result, into 

forced marriages and conversions. There was considerable consensus as to steps that the government might take. 

EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT

1. Local police stations will take seriously and file reports on 

all claims of disappearance of Coptic women and girls. All 

claims will be investigated and family members kept appraised 

of the progress of each of these cases. 

2. The Egyptian national government will request an annual 

accounting of all cases of disappearances including open and 

ongoing cases as well as any prosecutions that resulted from 

local police investigations. 

3. The Egyptian government will create a registry to document the disappearance of minors. 

4. Children of parents who convert will retain the religion of 

their birth until they are 18 years of age, the legal age of consent. 

5. The legal age for conversion to Islam will be raised to 18, 

which is the age of legal consent in Egypt. 

6. Laws which penalize discrimination based on religion in 

the areas of education, employment and the media will be enacted. 

57

COPTIC CHURCH

1. The Coptic Church will maintain a central registry documenting instances of disappearances, abductions and forced 

marriages and conversions of Coptic women. 

2. The Coptic Community will educate families and young 

women on the recruitment and deception patterns that lead to 

captivity. 

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

1. A legal defense fund will be created to enable Coptic families to secure the presence of an attorney. 

2. International or national agencies assessing the situation 

of Coptic women in Egypt will recognize that coercion and 

fraud are represented in most cases of disappearance, forced 

marriages and forced conversions, all of which obviate the consent of the victim. 

3. International organizations will recognize both the scope 

and scale of the problem and no longer refer to such offenses 

as mere ‘‘allegations.’’

Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, I thank you for 

your time and interest in this very important matter. I look forward to answering your questions.

58

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEAN MAHER, PRESIDENT, 

FRENCH OFFICE, EGYPTIAN UNION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION 

COPTIC GIRLS KIDNAPPING

A STRATEGIC HUMILIATION PLAN

A PREPARATION TO A COPTIC GENOCIDE

JEAN MAHER

10 MINUTES SPEECH

1. Coptic Girls and Women disappearances 

2. Methodology 

3. A Preparation to a Coptic genocide 

4. The International Community role 

I. COPTIC GIRLS AND WOMEN DISAPPEARANCES

1. Photo of 30 disappeared Coptic girls—published on the Internet in 2008

2. Some samples of parents complaints to the Human Rights Organization in Cairo: one page, one girl. As a reward, Kidnappers 

and their accomplices are paid by Saudis and Golf countries money. 

One Coptic girl = 10 to 50 thousand dollars. 

3. Few girls have succeeded to escape and they tell their horrible 

experience. As an example, Engy Adel witnessing is circulating on 

the net in an Arabic-speaking video http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=JrfnOcW1H2A&feature=youtubelgdatalplayer http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H97sMYZ9-9MlNR=1

Engy was 12 when she was kidnapped. Today she is 16, and 

counts: 

• I went out from school and was followed by some young people. 

They pushed me in a taxi and used a vaporizer so I lost conscience 

and woke-up to find myself in an apartment. A lady with two other 

girls introduced me to a man named ‘‘Sultan’’. He took me in a 

room, tied my arms on my back and raped me. Four other men 

raped me, one after one. Each one seemed to have the desire to cut 

my body in pieces as if I was his enemy and hates me. 

• For one month I was beaten and had a lot of blue marks. I was 

unable to eat, drink or sleep. All they wanted was to give me drugs 

and rape me. 

• For two consecutive days five men stayed in the room and 

raped me. I was awake unable to sleep 24 hours a day. 

• Crying: more than 50 men during this month have raped me. 

Then my father succeeded in finding me and I came back home. 

The police security asked me to come for interrogation. The officer 

only beat me so hard with his feet in my stomach and my back, 

pulled me from my hair and treated me as street-girl. They wanted 

to force me to say that I left my family by my own will and nothing 

of these stories happened. 

• I was only 12 when this happened. Why all this? Only because 

I am a Christian. Crying: now everybody around me thinks I am 

a bad girl. 

59

• The father: I succeeded, alone, to bring back my daughter. The 

police have done nothing, was of no help and they do not have the 

right to beat her, she has done no fault. 

4. Another example is the testimony of a mother I met personally, by chance, two years ago in Egypt. She knew that a French 

couple will attend a meeting, so she came to see us and to tell her 

story. She gave me her daughter photo abducted in 2007 at the age 

of 19. She wrote on the back the names of her abductor and her 

Islamist husband. • On the last day of the faculty exams she went to a restaurant 

where her Moslem girlfriend offered her a pizza and a Coke. She 

felt dizzy and called her parents telling them she is coming back 

home because she is sick. She never came back. • Despite the death threats and the police phone tapping, this 

courageous mother traced and found the names of his Islamist husband and her Islamist abductors, one of them registered as a terrorist in the Security files. • She complained to the police, wrote to the Interior Minister 

and former President Mubarak. After the Revolution she went to 

the Military Council and the Prime Minister. As an answer she had 

always received ‘‘silence′′ • When she tried to see Mrs. Suzan Mubarak, one of the presidential guards told her ‘‘if your daughter is in the hand of these 

people, forget about her’’. • Her daughter is now wearing the Niqab, living in drugs, and 

was lately seen beaten in the street because she dared trying to answer her mother phone call. • She seems convinced her parents will be killed if she tries to 

escape. • All the names of the perpetrators, complicit police officers and 

complicit University Islamist professors are available. The parents 

keep hoping to see again their daughter. 

5. Before meeting this lady I was not aware of this type of struggle in Egypt. Living in France I preferred not to be involved in 

Egyptian or Coptic contacts, limiting this type of activity to conferences and radio interviews on the Coptic Pharaonic-background 

culture. This heart-broken lady led me to personal commitments. 

II. METHODOLOGY

- These barbaric acts are executed according to a well elaborated 

methodology by people who want to gain money, or by people convinced to be doing ‘‘Good’’ for Allah, by bringing a ‘‘Kafir infidel’’ 

women to Islam. The number of Copts will therefore decrease and 

the number of Moslems will increase since, by law, the children follow the religion of the father. 

- Since in the oriental culture taking away a girl-virginity means 

taking away the whole family’s ‘‘Honor’’, the plan aims at either 

kidnapping or sexually compromising Christian girls, by defiling 

and humiliating them. The psychological effect on the girl is becoming a shame to her family, and conversion to Islam becomes the solution to the problems. Besides a girl who loses her will, the family 

is covered by a shame, condemned by their social environment, the 

Moslems claiming the girl came by her own will and some Christians reproaching not having take enough care of their daughter. 

60

A process leading to humiliation of the Coptic community as whole 

in front of the supremacy of Islam 

- In a newspaper interview, a Moslem Researcher Mr. Ayman 

Abdel Rasoul, asserted of the complicity of the Security Police and 

designated as a main instigator Imam Abou Islam Ahmed 

Abdallah, known as ‘‘Abou Islam’’ acting through an Association 

called ‘‘Nour el Islam’’. He revealed that the girls are gathered in 

one building apartments in Cairo suburb. He also gave a list of 

Islamist associations specialized in dragging the Coptic girls, using 

Internet, money, employment, and other means, stressing that 

these associations have a the Security support and cover-up • Ansar el Sunna el Mohamadeya (Winners of Mohamed Sunna 

Association) • El Shareya (The Legitimate Association) - a Salafist • Nour el Islam (The Light of Islam Association) 

- Information from other source gives the method used in 4 

steps: 

1. Grouping 9 minor girls between 12-17 years’ age in one apartment where they are drugged and brainwashed 

2. Keep them up to the majority age of 18 where they are 

brought to Al Azhar Mosque to convert to Islam. They immediately 

obtain the ID mentioning the religion as Moslem instead of Christian and the name is islamized. Note that the opposite way is impossible. 

3. Bring young boys or men and force them to marry 

4. Keep the girl away from her family, maintain the doubt on the 

Christian doctrine (God can’t marry and has no son), inculcate terror and fear that she is a shame to her family who will kill her 

if she returns and since she is a Moslem she can’t go back to Christianity or she be killed. 

- What statistics? How many girls? 

• Egyptian Union for Human Rights monitored 800 cases since 

2009• Egypt4Christ monitored 45 cases under 18 years since the January Revolution. Between 2005-2010 they know 275 cases under 18 

and 400 cases over 18. 

III. A PREPARATION TO A COPTIC GENOCIDE? 

- Within the Islamic Nation, Egypt is the only Muslim country 

to have an important number of Christians with around 12 millions 

of Copts. They still maintain some of the Pharaonic civilization 

through their everyday customs and their Coptic language, the last 

version of the Pharaonic hieroglyphics. 

- The Copts represent an obstacle to the radical Islamists who 

are dreaming to establish the Great Worldwide Islamic Caliphate 

Nation. Strategic plans are set to get rid of them by different 

means. Disappearance of minor Coptic girls and women is just one 

their horrible means. In Irak, out of One million Christians few 

years ago, only 300 to 400 thousands are left. 

- After Alexandria church bombing at the 2011 New Year’s Eve, 

following Bagdad church bombing, French President Nicolas 

Sarkozy gave a speech on the 7th of January denouncing a religious extermination plan to get rid of the Middle East Christians. 

He mentioned that France will not tolerate such a plan. 

61

- On March 5th, Mr. Patrick Devedjan Member of Parliament, 

former Minister was invited as a Guest-speaker to one of our conferences on Egypt’s revolution. Son of Armenian parents who run 

away from the Turkish Genocide, he recalled the context of the 

euphoric Turkish revolution in 1908 seeking freedom and democracy and claiming a secular country away from the religious Ottoman power. Only seven years later in 1915 around 1.2 millions, the 

2/3 of the Armenians were exterminated. He wished that today’s 

media and fast communication will prevent such a scenario to the 

Copts of Egypt. 

IV. THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY ROLE

1. A US or International Human Rights investigation commission 

to examine the events freely 

2. Pressure the Military Council to take actions demanding a 

precise time plan (expect that the answer is that these are only individual love stories where the Coptic girl wants to follow her Moslem lover) 

3. Pressure Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries to stop financing 

these terrorists acts 

As a conclusion I have a message and a request: 

• Message: the ‘‘Moslem Brotherhoods’’ will never change or 

leave their objective of restoring the Islamic Caliphate. They are 

only changing tactics and adapting their language. Early Parliamentary election will bring them to power and will not represent 

the real democratic demands. A Constitutional framework must be 

prepared first. 

• Request to President Obama: 

- The US Middle East policy should encourage the Moslem Liberals and not favour handing-over Egypt to the ‘‘Moslem Brotherhoods’’. Consequences will be huge and they will not be in the interest of the American people. 

- US Financing aid to Egypt must be conditioned by real democratic process according to the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights and not according to the Sharia Islamic law. 

Actions are needed now, before it is too late.

62

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE EGYPTIAN 

HUMAN RIGHTS NGOS PAPYRUS 

‘‘FREEDOM, DIGNITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE’’

BASIC PROVISIONS IN THE CONSTITUTION

EGYPTIAN HUMAN RIGHTS NGOS PAPYRUS

WHY THIS PAPYRUS? 

The principles proposed here aim to contribute to the current social debate surrounding the constitution of the January 25 Revolution from a human rights perspective, particularly regarding guarantees for the protection of a civil state and a secular state, as inspired by the values of the January 25 Revolution. 

The purpose of this document is not to reject, oppose, or disparage other initiatives that have been released or that are currently 

being prepared. Indeed, some of those who participated in drafting 

this document also contributed to discussions over the document 

released by Dr. Mohamed El-Baradei, a potential presidential candidate, and agree with the basic rights outlined in that document. 

Nevertheless, the fact that similar documents have been prepared 

by various political groups does not obviate the importance of 

issuing a document offering a human rights perspective. 

This document was drafted to be brief and condensed. It is not 

a summary of the constitution. Thus, it does not address in detail 

the human rights guarantees that must be enshrined in the constitution, as the place for this is the constitution itself. The document suffices by referring to a supreme safeguard for these rights, 

namely, that all rights and guarantees found in international 

human rights conventions and international law must be incorporated as the base line for the new constitution and that these 

sources of law should be the prime reference used to elaborate 

these rights in the constitution and in legislation. 

The document does not adopt a particular system of governance 

(parliamentary, presidential, or mixed) but leaves this issue to the 

constitution. It rather stipulates a set of higher constitutional values that must be respected in any democratic system, regardless of 

the specific mode of governance adopted by the constitution. 

The document also refrains from offering any specific formulation 

on what is commonly known in Egypt as ‘‘Article 2’’ of the constitution related to the sources of legislation, as the constitution is the 

appropriate place to determine this issue. However, the document 

does affirm the need for multiple sources of legislation as a supraconstitutional principle that reflects the reality of Egyptians’ religious, sectarian, ethnic, and cultural diversity. This principle has 

become a point of broad social consensus, including among different 

camps of political Islamists, although disagreements remain about 

the appropriate formulation to express the diversity of legislative 

sources. 

This document calls for the creation of a Constitutional Council 

whose mandate is to guard these supra-constitutional principles 

against infringement based on supposed ‘‘democratic’’ pretexts that 

claim majority backing. After a democratic system is firmly established in Egypt, perhaps over the next 20 years, Egypt may no 

63

longer need such a safeguard to ensure the protection of these 

rights. 

THE BASIC CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS PAPYRUS

ARTICLE 1

Egypt is a nation of multiple religions, sects, confessions, 

ethnicities, and cultures. This unique diversity, which has shaped 

the character and identity of Egyptians, along with the productive 

engagement of its constituent parts throughout history and the 

interplay of Pharaonic, Nubian, Coptic, Arab, and Islamic civilizations, is a source of pride and respect for all Egyptians and the 

backbone of their sacred national union. Egyptian identity is multidimensional and has roots in multiple civilizations. This diversity 

is the most significant source of the richness and distinction of 

Egyptian identity. Historically and practically it cannot be reduced 

to one dimension without destroying Egyptians’ national unity or 

depriving the country of its’ independence. 

The constitution guarantees the diversity of the sources of legislation as a reflection of the diverse currents feeding Egyptian identity and in support of national unity so that no legislation is imposed regulating the private sphere of citizens that contradicts 

their beliefs and so that no legislation is imposed regulating public 

or private spheres that conflicts with guarantees of human rights 

and public liberties. 

The constitution guarantees every Egyptian the right to enjoy 

cultural rights, insofar as this is also a requirement for the preservation of the national heritage and the cultures of various ethnic, 

religious, and geographic groups throughout the history of Egypt. 

ARTICLE 2

1. Egypt is an independent, free, and democratic state. Its political system is based on the constitution, which is founded on several fundamental principles: 

a. The sovereignty of the people as the source of all authority. 

b. Respect for civil, political, economic, social, and cultural 

rights as established by international conventions and international law. The constitution shall elaborate these rights 

without infringing on them, and the legislator shall not have 

the right to infringe on or restrict these rights using any justification not found in international conventions. The constitution shall provide that human rights values constitute the 

main pillar of Egyptian foreign policy. 

c. The separation, balance, and mutual oversight of the three 

branches of authority, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. 

d. The rule of law and the equality of all citizens before the 

law. 

e. The constitution shall provide for a system that guarantees 

Egyptians the right to dignity and social justice. 

2. The philosophy of the democratic system in the constitution 

aims to: 

a. Strengthen and protect the values of pluralism as a part 

of human nature, a fundamental human value and the foundaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
64

tion upon which to unleash Egyptians’ energies to build their 

country and advance in all fields. As such, the constitution 

guarantees the flourishing of pluralism. No majority shall be 

permitted to suppress any minority by any means, whether 

ideological, religious, confessional, or ethnic, or any artistic, literary, or philosophical school of thought. The constitution and 

legislation also prohibit all forms of incitement to religious hatred and racism that lead to violence. 

b. Adopt and foster all forms and methods created or developed by Egyptians that strengthen democracy based on participation and popular oversight, starting with pupils’ committees 

in schools and leading up to a system of local governance, 

which constitutes an effective model of self government that 

helps hone Egyptians’ capabilities for the sake of development 

and advancement. These initiatives shall be based on elections 

at every level. The constitution must address freedom and the 

instruments of democratic governance as a major pillar for the 

advancement of the Egyptian nation and its progress in all 

fields, including the eradication of poverty and illiteracy. 

3. The people exercise sovereignty through their parliament 

based on periodic general elections; the representative elected parliament shall undertake the task of legislation and oversight of executive actions. 

4. The constitution guarantees the freedom to establish and operate political parties, professional and labor unions, non-governmental organizations, and all other forms of civil society association by notice, as long as the objectives and programs of these bodies do not violate the basic rights of Egyptians elaborated in this 

document and as long as they pursue their activities in a peaceful 

manner. The constitution does not permit the establishment of political parties based on religious or ethnic exclusion. Political parties, professional and labor unions, and non-governmental organizations have the right to offer advice to the different legislative 

bodies in cases related to their respective fields of specializations. 

5. The constitution guarantees full independence of the judiciary, 

including the Public Prosecutor, and limits the jurisdiction of the 

military judiciary solely to military crimes committed by members 

of the armed forces. 

6. The constitution guarantees the independence of religious institutions. These institutions shall be devoted to strengthening 

their spiritual role in advancing the character of Egyptians and 

cultivating religious values. Any partisan activity is not permitted 

in any facilities belonging to religious institutions. 

7, The democratic system of the constitution guarantees the principle of accountability for all officials who occupy executive or legislative public office before the people and before representative and 

judicial bodies for all their conduct while in office. They are prohibited from practicing any kind of private enterprise during their 

term in office. 

ARTICLE 3

The police is a regular, civil, non-military, body, which oversees 

the protection of internal security and the public order. The InteVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:54 Oct 31, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 U:\WORK\072211.TXT KATIE
65

1 Including the Supreme Constitutional Court, which is to be granted complete independence 

based on Article 2(B) of this document. 

rior Ministry shall be subject to oversight by elected representative 

bodies and assumed by a political figure. 

ARTICLE 4

The state alone has the power to establish armed forces. Under 

no circumstance may any other body or group establish military or 

paramilitary formations. The armed forces defend the country’s 

independence and secure it against military dangers. 

The President of the republic is the commander in chief of the 

armed forces. The Ministry of Defense shall be subject to oversight 

by elected representative bodies. 

ARTICLE 5

All Egyptians, women and men, shall enjoy all the rights and 

guarantees specified in this document without discrimination; any 

assault on these rights shall constitute a crime. 

No text in this document shall be interpreted to arrogate to any 

state institution, group, or individual any right to engage in any 

activity or deed aimed at undermining the rights, liberties, and 

guarantees contained in this document. 

Upon approval of this document, it shall become binding on any 

constitutional assembly established to form the new constitution. 

No part of it may be amended in the twenty years following its approval, even by parliamentary majority or a new constitutional assembly. The parliament shall review current laws for their consistency with the provisions of this document and amend them or draft 

alternative legislation when necessary. 

ARTICLE 6

A Constitutional Council shall be established to oversee the protection of the constitution and the democratic system, in particular 

to guarantee the application of Article 5 of this document. This 

council shall be comprised of the chairs of the high courts,1 led by 

the president of the Supreme Judicial Council. The Constitutional 

Council’s decisions are binding on all parties. 

Members of parliament, political parties, human rights organizations, civil society groups, and national human rights institutions 

shall have the right to petition the constitutional council directly 

with a constitutional grievance or any complaint relevant to its 

mandate. 

SIGNATORIES

1. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) 

2. Alternative Development Foundation 

3. Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies 

4. Arab Penal Reform Organization 

5. Arabic Network for Human Rights Information 

6. Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression 

7. Cairo Center for Development 

8. Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance 

9. Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services 

66

10. Coptic Solidarity 

11. Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement 

12. Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, 

13. Egyptian Foundation for the Advancement of Childhood Conditions 

14. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights 

15. Egyptian Organization for Human Rights 

16. Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination 

17. Habi Center for Environmental Rights 

18. Hand in Hand for Egypt 

19. Helwan Foundation for Community Development-Bashayer 

20. Hisham Mubarak Law Center 

21. Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners 

22. Human Rights Legal Aid Group 

23. Ishraqa Center for Women’s Rights 

24. Mother Association for Rights and Development 

25. Nazra for Feminist Studies 

26. New Woman Research Center 

27. United Group 

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