United Nations Human Rights Council Forum on Minority Issues - Sixth Session “Beyond freedom of religion or belief: Guaranteeing the rights of religious minorities” Geneva, November 26-27, 2013 Protecting Religious Minorities: A Human Imperative Presentation of Rev. Majed El Shafie, One Free World International Mister/Madam Chair, Madam Independent Expert, Distinguished delegates and colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, My name is Reverend Majed El Shafie, and I am the President and Founder of One Free World International (OFWI), an international human rights organization based out of Toronto, Canada. I would like to thank the Forum for the opportunity to present our comments and recommendations on this most urgent issue of the rights of religious minorities. Before I discuss our topic today, I beg your indulgence as I give you a little background. I was born in Egypt to a prominent Muslim family of judges and lawyers and grew up with a vast library of books on law, justice, and human rights, determined to become a human rights lawyer. During law school I was persuaded by much personal study and reflection to accept the beliefs of Christianity and shortly after my conversion began advocating equal rights for Egyptian Christians. For these reasons I was detained and severely tortured by Egyptian authorities and sentenced to death. I fled Egypt and finally settled in Canada in 2002, establishing OFWI to share a message of freedom, hope, and tolerance for religious differences and to promote human rights in this area through advocacy and public education. Our mission and calling at OFWI is to stand up for religious minorities and individuals around the world who are being persecuted because of their personal beliefs, regardless of religion or creed. We advocate on behalf of religious minorities and individuals through direct interventions with foreign governments, by educating our own politicians and citizens about religious freedom and abuses of human rights in this area, and through humanitarian aid and rescue missions. It is not necessary today to go into detail about the kinds of challenges and violations religious minorities face around the world. Without wishing to oversimplify the matter, the vast majority of challenges faced by religious minorities fall into three categories. Firstly, there are the threats from secular authoritarian regimes, which monitor, regulate, and control religious practice and expression within their boundaries and suppress any unauthorized practice. The second involve cases of religious dominance; this may involve a state favouring a majority religion while discriminating against or persecuting minority religions or it could involve the actions of religious extremists often acting with the tacit support of state