CANADA’S SILENCE ON EGYPT A SIN
Among the Trudeau Liberals’ most egregious foreign policy errors is to have positioned Canada as an apologist for the autocratic regime in Egypt. In the past few years, as Egyptian society has slipped deeper into despotic rule under former general Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the Trudeau administration has seemed incapable of making a critical comment toward its North African partner.
Documented by the world’s leading human rights organizations, the Sisi regime’s crimes are incontrovertible: locking up thousands of political prisoners; subjecting them to physical and psychological abuse; conducting forced disappearances; and maintaining a massive opaque prison system known for torture.
Not to mention political and electoral fraud. Sisi “won” a general election this year with a comical 97 per cent of the popular vote. No self-respecting observer takes the results very seriously, especially given how Sisi intimidated and locked up all his potential opponents prior to election day.
Canada should have stood up to Sisi long ago in the name of human rights. It’s now up to civil society to push Ottawa to take off its blinders. To that effect, a number of concerned citizens have signed an open letter issued by the advocacy group Egyptian Canadian Coalition for Democracy (ECCD) to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In short, the document asks the prime minister to support the Egyptian people by condemning the Sisi regime’s unprecedented crimes, “and to call for a hearing to discuss abuses of human rights in Egypt,” drawing on recognized experts and former victims.
Let’s not forget: Sisi first came to power through a coup, not an election. Mohamed Morsi, elected by a fair vote in 2012 to be president of Egypt, was overthrown a year later by a military-backed takeover. Sisi, a military general at the time, stepped in to fill the executive void. The new regime then ordered the gunning down of more than a thousand demonstrators who protested the coup.
Today, like thousands of others, Morsi is lying on a cement floor somewhere in the Egyptian prison system, forced into solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
Ottawa didn’t say much while all of this unfolded. In fact, ever since the 2013 coup, when Stephen Harper was still in charge, Ottawa has continuously praised Sisi’s reign, even in the face of mass arrests that number in the tens of thousands. The good that this bizarre policy is supposed to bring Canadians has yet to bear fruit.
Meanwhile, Sisi’s brutal security apparatus has been more than happy to jail Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Look up the case of journalist Mohamed Fahmy, or those of activists Tarek Loubani and John Greyson, not to mention the harrowing case of Khaled al-Qazzaz. All were released from Egyptian cells only after popular protest and a lot of strong persuasion. Greyson is a signee of the ECCD letter, along with numerous other political and civic leaders such as Amir Khadir, a member of Quebec’s National Assembly, and Mohammad Fadel, a prominent academic at the University of Toronto.
But the Canadian political class has yet to clue in. Take for example the visit to Egypt last year by a delegation from the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, led by Liberal MP Robert Oliphant. The trip was meant to expose Canadian parliamentarians to the social and political conditions that Egyptian legislators face as they struggle to govern.
For whatever reason, the association’s subsequent report about the visit borders on pro-Sisi propaganda. It’s a virtual whitewash of the regime’s countless violations and crimes, replete with highly questionable observations, such as how badly Sisi wants to improve women’s rights. Is this what Canadian foreign policy looks like these days? The ECCD addresses this strange report in its letter by pointing out the lack of objective criticism. So far, the Canadian government has not shown any willingness to remedy its mistakes.
Even the dysfunctional government south of our border has been far more critical of the Sisi regime. Think about that: Donald Trump’s America has a more rational, prohuman-rights orientation toward Egypt than Ottawa.
Last year Trump withheld US$300 million in aid from Egypt because it failed to make progress regarding human rights and democracy. This year, Congress has warned Sisi another US$300 million of annual aid will be withheld if certain human-rights standards aren’t met. John McCain, Marco Rubio and others have all issued statements decrying Sisi’s antipathy toward human rights.
Across the Atlantic, a group of U.K. MPs recently urged for Mohamed Morsi to be allowed adequate medical treatment. The EU Parliament also debated and voted on a report decrying Sisi’s autocratic tendencies.
And Canada? Has Trudeau or his government at least condemned the mass imprisonment or the extrajudicial killings carried out under Sisi’s reign? Have they condemned the unprecedented degree of political fraud and oppression under Sisi? Have they at least warned Sisi of how the current situation impedes Egypt’s socioeconomic growth?
No. Nothing has been done, and that needs to change immediately.
SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP TO SISI LONG AGO ON RIGHTS.