Hamdi Zakzouk says Nag Hammadi Masacre was reaction to the rape incident
church was under "intense pressure from security services" not to
meet with the USCIRF.
Viewing cable 10CAIRO153, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM COMMISSION VISITS EGYPT
- SECTARIAN ATTACK
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 000153
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR DRL/IRF, NEA/ELA
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2020/02/03
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KIRF KISL EG KPAO
SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM COMMISSION VISITS EGYPT - SECTARIAN ATTACK
DOMINATES DISCUSSIONS
REF: CAIRO 140; CAIRO 59; 09 CAIRO 477; 09 CAIRO 1109; 09 CAIRO 453
09 CAIRO 2229
CLASSIFIED BY: Donald Blome, Minister-Counselor for Economic and
Political Affairs, State, ECPO; REASON: 1.4(B), (D)
¶1. (SBU) A delegation from the United States International
Religious Freedom Commission (USCIRF),
consisting of three commissioners and three staff members
led by the USCIRF chairman, visited Cairo
from January 22 to 26. The delegation met with the Minister
of Islamic Endowments, the Grand Imam
of Al Azhar Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, a Ministry of Foreign
Affairs human rights official, t
he quasi-governmental National Council for Human Rights,
human rights activists, and representatives
of minority religious communities, Muslim and non-Muslim.
The delegation, at the request of the GoE,
agreed to defer travel to Upper Egypt because of ongoing
tensions following the Naga Hamadi
sectarian attack (refs A and B.) Although the delegation
made no public statements, it attracted
intense press attention, mostly critical of the USCIRF's
"interference" in Egypt's "internal affairs."
Minister of Islamic Endowments and NCHR on Naga Hamadi
¶2.
(C) Discussions with Hamdi Zaqzouq, Minister of Islamic
Endowments (Awqaf),
focused on the January 6 killings in Naga Hamadi
(refs A and B). According to Zaqzouq,
the killings were a response to the November rape
of a Muslim girl by a Coptic man.
Zaqzouq asserted that such "honor crimes" occur
regularly and only receive Western media
attention when both Christians and Muslims are involved.
Zaqzouq said that "all Muslim leaders"
criticized the "criminal act" and recounted how he
travelled to Naga Hamadi after the attack
to offer condolences to the victims' families.
¶3. (C) Kamal Aboul Magd, V
ice President of the quasi-governmental National
Council for Human Rights (NCHR),
told the delegation that it had dispatched a team
of researchers to Naga Hamadi to investigate.
Aboul Magd said the NCHR's researchers had completed
a report which it had delivered to the GoE,
but had not released publicly. Without revealing
the report's contents,
Aboul Magd said the NCHR's finding would make
it difficult for the GoE to avoid
"fully applying" the law in the Naga Hamadi case.
MFA on Naga Hamadi and Defamation ¶4.
(C) Deputy Assistant Foreign Minister for Human Rights
Wael Aboul Magd told the delegation that
"societal violence" between Muslims and Copts is
a regular occurrence,
but Naga Hamadi
had forced Egyptian society to focus on the problem.
As a result of national "outrage," Aboul Magd believes
the law will be firmly applied.
Aboul Magd said he remains unsure about the motives for the killings,
acknowledging that the GoE's initial assertion that
the killing was in revenge for
the alleged rape of a Muslim girl in November "doesn't seem to fit."
He urged caution, however, in accepting "broader
conspiracy theories"
tying the crime to a political rivalry between
Naga Hamadi's Coptic bishop and a local politician. Commenting more
generally on sectarianism, Aboul Magd said that
Muslim-Christian relations
have traditionally been "reasonably good," but in
recent years Egyptian
society has become "worryingly radicalized"
with each group taking on
an "us verses them" mentality. He said the GoE is concerned
about this trend and is working to overcome it through its focus
on Egyptian citizenship
- not religious affiliation - as the source of rights and duties.
¶5. (C) Addressing Egypt's sponsorship of the
defamation of religions resolution in the United Nations, Aboul
Magd said Egypt will continue to push the resolution.
According to Aboul Magd, Egypt's goal is to protect Europe's
Muslim community and encourage European
countries to treat "incitement of religious hatred" as a crime.
CAIRO 00000153 002 OF 003 Church Leader on Security
Services Harassment ¶6. (C) At the Qasr al Dubara
Presbyterian Church, which works with Muslim converts to
Christianity, Pastor Sameh Mories told the
delegation that the situation of Muslim converts to Christianity
is deteriorating. Although Mories believes President
Mubarak and the upper-levels
of the GoE are "very supportive" of religious freedom
(he noted that Mubarak approved more building permits for churches than "Sadat,
Nasser and the kings combined"), he thinks Egypt's security
services are becoming increasingly powerful and hostile to Muslim converts
to Christianity. Mories lamented that "five years ago, converts
to Christianity were persecuted by their families; now the police are
turning converts over to their families." Mories said that as
a church that baptizes Muslims, Qasr al Dubara is under constant
police scrutiny, and he complained that three U.S. religious
leaders who have had contact with the church had
recently been denied entry into Egypt by the GoE. ¶7.
(C) At the Qasr al Dubara Church, the delegation
met with Muslim convert to Christianity XXXXXXXXXXXX,
who unsuccessfully sued the GoE to compel it to
recognize his conversion (refs C and D). XXXXXXXXXXXX,
accompanied by XXXXXXXXXXXXXX, complained
of harassment and threats from his family and society
arising from his conversion.
A USCIRF delegation member told poloff that XXXXXXXXXXXX
pulled him aside after the meeting to
request unspecified U.S. Government assistance.
Baha'is, Jehovah Witnesses and Quranists ¶8. (
C) The delegation met with representatives of Egypt's Baha'i,
Jehovah Witnesses and Quranists. E
gyptian Baha'i leadership said that while the GoE
continues to issue identification documents to unmarried Baha'is
( "over 120" birth certificates and "30 to 40" national identification
cards) in compliance with a judicial decision
(ref E), the GoE has not issued documents to any married Baha'is
as the GoE does not recognize Baha'i marriage.
Jehovah Witness leadership complained of a December 2009
Administrative Court decision refusing to allow the
Jehovah Witness community to register as a legal entity.
Jehovah Witness leadership said the judge based his
decision largely on Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda's 2005
statement that the Jehovah Witnesses are not Christians.
The Jehovah Witnesses also complained of ongoing security
service surveillance and threats. Quranist
(a small heterodox Islamic group (ref F)) community members
complained of on-going GoE harassment -
including travel bans - and societal hostility, especially from
the Muslim Brotherhood.
Sheikh Tantawi on Naga Hamadi, Baha'is ¶9.
(C) Sheikh Tantawi, the head of Al Azhar,
met twice with the delegation. He condemned the Naga
Hamadi attack which he attributed to
"extremist" thinking. Tantawi said that in Al Azhar's view,
there is no distinction between Muslims and
Christians; all are Egyptians with the same rights and responsibilities.
On Baha'is, Tantawi argued that there is a
distinction, and defended labeling Baha'is "apostates" if they
had left Islam. Tantwai said, however,
that "apostasy" should be used only as a legal term and
acknowledged the danger that "extremists"
could receive the wrong message from the word. Coptic
Orthodox Church Declines to Meet with Delegation
¶10. (C) Pope Shenouda, the leader of the Coptic
Orthodox Church, declined to meet with the delegation.
In public statements, Shenouda attributed his refusal to the Church's
"rejection of foreign interference in Egypt's internal affairs."
Separately, a Coptic Church official told poloff
and the delegation that the CAIRO 00000153 003 OF 003
church was under "intense pressure from security s
ervices" not to meet with the USCIRF. The official also said
that the Church feared it would be blamed by the GoE if it
met with the delegation and the USCIRF subsequently
downgraded Egypt in its annual report from a
"watch list" country to a "country of particular concern."
Intense Press Interest ¶11. (SBU)
The visit generated intense press coverage, much of it
focused on the timing in the aftermath of the
Naga Hamadi attack and highlighting Pope Shenouda's
refusal to meet the delegation. Both pro-government
and opposition party press accused the USCIRF of "interference
in Egyptian internal affairs" and called the timing of the visit "suspicious."
Commentaries in the pro-government press were generally
negative with references to the
"evil committee" visiting Egypt to prepare "charges of sectarianism."
Some independent commentators were more nuanced; analysts
in independent newspapers wrote that
"the usual Egyptian response of none of your business is a
primitive attitude," and if religious freedom
"is an internal affair, then we must start immediately by
reforming our internal affairs." ¶12.
(U) The USCIRF delegation did not clear this message. SCOBEY