IDC Spotlights Bipartisanship in Confronting Christian Persecution in Egypt

A recent policy briefing by the advocacy group In Defense of Christians (IDC) recapped past and possible future U.S. action, both in Congress and the presidency, in advocating for the rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt. The event included remarks from some of the House of Representatives’ leading advocates for Egypt’s Coptic Christians, Reps. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and French Hill (R-AR), and highlighted the necessity of bipartisanship in passing legislation to aid persecuted religious minorities.

In addition to members of Congress, IDC’s policy briefing included a panel of experts on Christian persecution in Egypt. These experts, Nadine Maenza, a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Kurt Werthmuller, supervisory policy analyst with USCIRF, and Samuel Tadros, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, described the modest progress on religious freedom under Egypt’s President al-Sisi in recent years while simultaneously recognizing there is much more work to be done to successfully advocate for Egypt’s Christian minority.

In his remarks, Rep. Hill stated that he plans to reintroduce his resolution on Egypt (H.Res. 49 in the 116^th Congress) in the current 117^th Congress. This resolution “acknowledges the importance of the U.S.-Egypt partnership and Egypt’s role in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism” and simultaneously “urges the Egyptian government to enact serious and legitimate reforms to ensure that Coptic Christians have the same rights and opportunities as other Egyptian citizens, and to take steps to end the culture of impunity for attacks on Christians.”

Congressman Sherman, a co-sponsor of Hill’s legislation, asserted that “Congress is paying attention to the Coptic community and how Egypt treats its Christian minority.” “Yes, Camp David was good, but that was a long time ago. And we’d like to see Egypt step forward when it comes to respecting human rights,” Sherman said his message would be to the Egyptian government.

Commissioner Maenza elaborated that although USCIRF is encouraged by the generally positive trends towards religious freedom and human rights for Egypt’s Copts under the al-Sisi government, greater action can be taken, and “the al-Sisi Administration has publicly acknowledged some of the challenges” that Copts still face. 

Maenza identified systematic and ongoing discrimination and sectarian violence as two of these challenges. She outlined USCIRF’s concerns over church registrations, stating that there are 250% more mosques than churches in relation to the Muslim-Christian population breakdown in Egypt today. Moreover, she spoke about USCIRF’s “longstanding request” for the Egyptian government to remove religion from national ID cards altogether.

“The freedom of all religious communities in Egypt, and those with no religion at all, are intertwined and should be protected as such,” asserted Maenza.

Werthmuller began his remarks with a plea to the al-Sisi government to release Ramy Kamel, a Coptic activist who was arrested by the Egyptian government in late 2019 and has been imprisoned ever since. Kamel was accused of “disturbing the public peace through the misuse of social media and spreading false news, and with joining and financing a terrorist group,” without evidence.

Maenza elaborated on Werthmuller’s plea, stating that the release of Ramy Kamel would “particularly give the government the opportunity to show goodwill to the Coptic community, which will be well received.”

The Hudson Institute’s Tadros contended, “I think he [al-Sisi] really appreciates the Copts, the Coptic Pope especially,” while also reminding viewers that “the Egyptian government is not the only actor when it comes to the persecution of Copts.” Extremist and sectarian attacks are a large part of the persecution that Copts face today.

In describing criteria for the al-Sisi government’s relations to Copts, and subsequently providing a grade for each criterion, Tadros stated, “most important is how the government deals with sectarian attacks, and in that regard, I think al-Sisi receives a very clear ‘F’. A complete failure by the government.”

In terms of U.S. policy towards al-Sisi and Egypt’s Coptic Christians, Tadros asserted, “I think there’s a risk that many advocates of religious freedom fear that the new [Biden] administration will sideline religious freedom due to the centrality of the topic under the Pompeo state department… that would be a really bad thing.” “Religious freedom shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”

As highlighted at the beginning of IDC’s policy briefing in the remarks of both a Republican and Democrat member of Congress, religious freedom abroad and advocacy for persecuted Christian minorities has traditionally found bipartisan support in U.S. Congress. “We hope that 2021 will be a year in which we have even more bipartisan support,” Rep. Hill expressed in his closing remarks. The IDC briefing demonstrated that bipartisanship will be especially central to successfully advocating for and passing legislation on Egypt’s Coptic Christians in the 117^th Congress and under the new Biden Administration.