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Falun Gong members shared stories of persecution, imprisonment and torture at a Dec. 9 event organized by One Free World International and Multiculturalism Minister of State Tim Uppal. Photo by Deborah Gyapong

Persecuted minorities must band together to fight all oppression says activist

By 
  • December 11, 2013

OTTAWA - Persecuted minorities must band together to fight all oppression, not only their own, One Free World International founder Majed El Shafe told a human rights event in Ottawa Dec. 9.

“The solution cannot be only the hand of this government,” El Shafe told a human rights information session marking the World’s Human Rights Day on Parliament Hill hosted by Minister of State for Multiculturalism Tim Uppal.

“We are the solution because we are united to fight side by side,” said the Muslim convert to Christianity who endured imprisonment and torture in his native Egypt.

El Shafe urged all oppressed groups to fight for each other, otherwise the push for human rights for all will lose momentum.

“We are extremely selfish,” he said, noting that Christians often only fight for Christians, Falun Gong for Falun Gong, Tibetans for Tibetans and so on. “We have to fight for each other.”

The gathering drew representatives from groups ranging from Christians being persecuted in Egypt and in Pakistan to Tibetans, Muslim Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners and democracy rights activists in China.

Representing Canada’s Coptic community, Sherif Mansour described the ongoing “tragedy” for Egypt’s Christians, who have faced persecution for 1,400 years “in their own land.” The West “got it wrong” in supporting the election of the Muslim Brotherhood during the Arab Spring, Mansour said.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is the mother of all terrorist organizations in the world.”

Last June 30, the Egyptian people arose to oust them from power, but since then 120 Christian churches or institutions have been burned or destroyed, he said. Yet the news media does not report on them.

“Three days ago, three girls in Alexandria were beheaded,” he said. They were eight-year-old Christian girls killed for not wearing a veil.

The Muslim Brotherhood is attacking Christians and the “government is turning a blind eye,” he said.

Pervez Masih, president of the United Christian Federation, a charity supporting persecuted Christians in Pakistan, reported on the plight of minorities persecuted as a result of blasphemy laws instituted in 1995. Since then, 160 have been put in jail, he said. The law has been used to harass, kill, bring about forced conversions and forced marriages of Christian and Hindu girls.

The Christians and other minorities tend to be very poor, with many working at brick kilns in a form a generational slavery, he said. Taliban and pro-Taliban groups have been carrying out revenge attacks on Christians because they consider them in league with the West. In a recent church bombing, 140 were killed, another 200 injured, but those injured were not able to get treatment in hospitals, Masih said.

Falun Dafa Association of Canada president Shawn Li told the gathering Falun Gong and its founder were highly respected in China until its numbers grew to 70 to 100 million people, posing a threat to the Chinese Community Party. Since 1999, China has engaged in a systemic persecution of Falun Gong practitioners that involves all levels of government, the media and the military, he said. It’s the most widespread persecution, penetrating all regions of China, and it is intensifying.

Falun Gong member Lizhi He told the gathering of the torture he suffered as a prisoner in China. He was abducted by state security agents after mailing letters to friends, he said. Lawyers could not represent him without risking losing their licences. He endured having cold water poured on him in freezing temperatures, bringing on a fever that lasted months.

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