Al Jazeera English - Interview: Cindy Sheehan

Interview: Cindy Sheehan

By Liam Stack in Cairo

Cindy Sheehan is in Cairo to protest the Egyptian government's decision to try members of the Muslim Brotherhood in a military court
Cindy Sheehan, an American activist who was nicknamed the "Peace Mom" by the media for her criticism of the Iraq War, retreated from her public campaigns in 2007.

The death of her son Casey, a US soldier, in a Baghdad battle in 2005 had transformed Sheehan into a public figure in the US.

But she resurfaced in Cairo last week as a member of a delegation from the Muslim American Society which is in Egypt to protest against the military trial of 40 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

She spoke to Al Jazeera about her journey from peace activist to Congressional candidate, her thoughts on Iraq and her experiences in Egypt.

Al Jazeera: You first became famous for your protests against the Iraq war in August 2005, but you have not been an active anti-war figure for a while now. What happened?

Sheehan says she wants to put impeachment of George Bush back on the agenda [GETTY]Sheehan: In May 2007, I decided to quit actually being the face of the anti-war movement in America. I quit and I have not gone back to that. When I left the movement I was broke, I was tired, I was sick – literally sick and in pain.

I wanted to just totally be out of the political realm and not have anything to do with it. The establishment that runs our country just disgusted me and I was tired of it. It is very corrupt and I definitely saw that when I was focusing on anti-war activism.

The leaders of both parties work together to keep normal people out of the process. In many ways the Democratic leadership, especially in Congress, has been complicit with George Bush, the US president, in his crimes against humanity.

How can [Democratic Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi say unequivocally that water-boarding is torture and that Bush and [Richard] Cheney, the US vice-president, should not only be impeached but they should be charged with war crimes when in 2002 she herself was briefed on water-boarding and shown video of the rendition places where water-boarding happened?

Impeaching George Bush was a popular demand among liberal Americans at one time, but very few people talk about it anymore. Is that what turned you into an activist again?

When George Bush commuted [vice-presidential aide] Scooter Libby's sentence, the Democrats in Congress didn't do anything about it. When the Administration said they would not cooperate with subpoenas against [presidential aide] Harriet Myers, the democrats didn't do anything about it.

That's what pulled me back into activism. I thought how can they do that? How can they say 'I'm just not going to come to your stupid trial,’ and no one will say anything about it?

When the Democrats took impeachment off the table, I decided enough was enough. On July 23, 2007, I officially announced that I was running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi.

Why the focus on Nancy Pelosi?

I don't think politicians who make political decisions necessarily think about how they are going to affect people and their families. I decided if Nancy Pelosi wasn't going to put impeachment on the table then I would run against her.

You can't take any part of the Constitution off the table, even though they have rendered it almost meaningless between George Bush and Karl Rove. Since they came to power they have institutionalised torture and spying against Americans.

They have passed the Military Commissions Act and just done away with habeas corpus. They have practically rendered it meaningless. That is why I decided to challenge Pelosi for her seat. I always say if you want change you have to vote out the enablers, and Pelosi is the biggest enabler there is.

If your new focus is on unseating Nancy Pelosi, what are you doing in Egypt?

My anti-war work evolved into work for global human rights because I saw the problem was much deeper than just George Bush.

It's about militarism and violence, globalisation and free trade.

I decided I wanted to do human rights work on behalf of people around the world who have been harmed by US imperialism.

Part of why I am here, also, is to draw attention to the parallels between the military courts here and the same kinds of courts that are being used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay by the US.
If this becomes the standard for the world, and there is no international outcry, then everyone is in big trouble.

But what does the US have to do with a military trial in Egypt?

Egypt is a major recipient of US foreign aid, and there is no relationship between American aid and human rights.

If we [America] really want to promote democracy in this region then we cannot silence the voices of the Muslim Brotherhood because they're the moderate voice here and they are the ones who are actually working for democracy.

Do you think your presence in Egypt will have an effect on the trial?

Well, we have been doing a lot of media work since we came to Egypt and we hope this will put pressure on the Egyptian government to treat the prisoners better and to also maybe alleviate their punishment.

Hopefully we will draw some international attention to what is happening here, too, and that will help the situation.

You also went to the National Council of Women in downtown Cairo to request a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's First Lady. How did that go?

I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on. There was a lot of yelling in Arabic. They weren't the right people to get us a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak ... I left a letter for Madame Mubarak and they promised that she would see it.

We thought it was important to go there because there are women and children who are being harmed by having their fathers and husbands detained, so I wanted to talk to Suzanne, mother to mother.

We brought along mothers and wives of the detainees and they were actually able to file complaints, and it was really great.

Have you spoken to many of the families of the defendants in the military trial? Have you spoken to many female members of the Brotherhood mother-to-mother?

My conversations with the mothers and children of the detainees have been really emotional. They told me about the hardships [the arrests and trials] have placed on their families, from financial hardships to emotional and physical hardships.

It is very emotional for me because my family has gone through the same things since my son died. It has been really hard for us.

People always say to me, 'Cindy, why do you always make everything personal?'.

But in the end, everything affects people, whether it's war or economics or human rights violations. I don't think politicians who make political decisions necessarily think about how they are going to affect people and their families.

That is why when I meet people who have been harmed by the policies of their own countries, or the policies of my country, it just makes me resolved to work harder to make the world a better place.

DNE: ID card policy violates religious freedom, say rights groups

ID card policy violates religious freedom, say rights groups

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 13, 2007

CAIRO - Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called on the government to allow Egyptian citizens to list their actual religion on national ID cards and other necessary official documents in a joint report released on Monday.

At the age of 16, all Egyptians are required to obtain a national ID card that states their religious affiliation.

Religion is listed on most official documents, including birth certificates, although in some cases the religion written on the ID card is different from the religion listed at birth.

No law on the books requires people to believe only in Islam, Christianity or Judaism, and activists say that Egyptians are guaranteed freedom of belief by both international and domestic laws.

But according to the new report, members of the Baha’i faith, as well as those who have converted from Islam, are systematically prevented from getting official documents listing their true religious beliefs.

Many say they are bullied or forced into lying about their religion, and some are later prosecuted for fraud if police learn that they are practicing a different religion than the one listed on their ID. Activists say that this is the fate that befalls many converts.

“The problem that we identify in this report is that Ministry of Interior officials systematically prevent some people, in particular Baha’is and people who have converted from Islam, from properly identifying themselves in their documents,” says Joe Stork, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch.

Baha’is and converts are often unable to acquire any documents at all, and are consigned to a bleak state of official non-existence.

Without proper government identification, it is impossible to accomplish many basic tasks, such as going to a hospital, getting a job, collecting a pension or enrolling in a university.

“This is a violation of religious freedom that has much broader implications on a whole range of people’s rights,” says Stork. “This is not based on any Egyptian law, and our message today is that the government should begin to follow its own laws.”

The rights groups say that the restrictions on people’s official religious status are not sanctioned by existing Egyptian law, but rather come from some officials’ misguided belief that allowing people to record their actual faith would encourage heresy and violate Islamic law.

Under certain interpretations of Islamic law, both converts from Islam and those who believe in faiths beside the three “revealed” religions are considered apostates.

Since sharia is legally considered one component of public order in Egypt, some officials at the Ministry of Interior consider recognition of conversion and other religions a threat to society.

But Islamic law is not a monolithic body, says Hossam Bahgat, the Director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Islamic jurists have reached no consensus on what punishments, if any, should be meted out to people considered apostates in the here and now.

Matters of Islamic jurisprudence are also far outside the jurisdiction of bureaucrats inside the Ministry of Interior’s Civil Status Department, he says.

“We agree with many Islamic scholars that the state is under no obligation to punish people for their religious beliefs and that it should not impose worldly penalties on people who leave the Islamic faith,” he says.

“We are not saying there is a consensus supporting our opinion, we are saying there is no consensus supporting any opinion on this matter. Scholars widely disagree on the issue.”

Furthermore, he argues, the Egyptian penal code does not forbid conversion from Christianity to Islam, or bar citizens from practicing a religion outside of Islam, Christianity or Judaism.

“For the government to say that sharia requires these violations of religious freedom and equality is both a violation of international law and of sharia itself,” he added.

The Egyptian Baha’i community is small, numbering no more than 2,000 people. For decades they have lived peacefully beside their Muslim, Christian and Jewish countrymen.

But the community began to face hardship in the 1950s, when Arab nationalists cast a suspicious gaze on their faith and its world headquarters in Haifa, a formerly Palestinian town that had recently become part of the State of Israel.

Egyptian Baha’is have been able to obtain national ID cards in the past, which until recently were hand-written. Under the old system, workers at the Ministry’s Civil Status Department were allowed to write ‘other’ or simply leave a dash in the space left blank for religious affiliation.

But the system of hand-written ID cards and birth certificates have been steadily phased out in recent years, and may be declared null and void as soon as this January.

They are being replaced by sleeker computer printed versions, but Ministry guidelines now forbid people to leave their religious affiliation blank, and only a rare few are allowed to be marked “other.”

Wafaa Hindi and her family, all Bahai, say they live a life full of worrying bureaucratic hardships because the government will not issue them official documents that list their true religion.

Her two sons, Nabil and Kareem, were both given hand-written birth certificates listing their religion as Baha’i.

But when the Ministry of the Interior modernized the country’s birth registries, putting everyone’s information on computer databases, the whole family’s religious affiliation was changed.

To make matters worse, each member of her family was assigned a different religion.

“Nabil’s religion is listed as ‘other.’” She says. “ But Kareem is listed as a Muslim, and my husband Sami and I are both listed as Christians. It’s like we are a mixed salad. But this is not me, this is not any of us – we are Baha’i.”

Now Nabil, her oldest son, faces expulsion from Suez Canal University because he does not have proper identification.

“We are so afraid for our son,” she says. “Anyone can stop him in the street and ask for his ID, and he doesn’t have one.”

Hindi says she does not understand why the government does not let them list their actual religion on their IDs, or at the very least let them leave the cards blank. She sees a difference between official toleration of the Baha’i faith and official endorsement.

“If the government says that I am a Baha’i and recognizes that in the official documents I need, then that is not the same thing as them agreeing with my religion or recognizing four revealed religions,” she says.

“Just saying that they recognize that I have my own religious beliefs does not mean that they believe them too.”

DNE: Rights group calls on Egypt to stop forced return of refugees to Sudan

Rights group calls on Egypt to stop forced return of refugees to Sudan

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 5, 2007

CAIRO: Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a statement calling on Egypt to stop sending Sudanese refugees back to Sudan against their will.

Authorities forcibly repatriated five Sudanese citizens detained by Israel in August after crossing the Sinai to seek refuge there.

The New York-based rights group fears that the returned refugees will face persecution in their home country, and say that such forced repatriations are in violation of international law.

It says that many of the people in question came to Egypt to escape violence in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.

"We are extremely worried by Egypt's failure to account for these people," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East and North Africa division of HRW. "The entire incident reveals Egypt and Israel's shared disregard for the plight of Sudanese fleeing Darfur."

The repatriated Sudanese were part of a group of 48 detainees caught by Israel and handed over to Egypt. Israeli authorities claim they received assurances from Cairo that the detainees would not be returned to Sudan, although Egypt denies making any such promise.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at least 23 of those detainees were either officially classified as refugees or have outstanding asylum claims.

But the exact number of refugees in the group is unclear because Egyptian security has not allowed the UNHCR access to the detained men.

"Egypt cannot avoid its obligation to assess the refugee status of persons fleeing a conflict by preventing the UN refugee agency from seeing them," said Whitson. "Egypt is thumbing its nose at a fundamental principle of refugee law."

Refugees expelled from Israel face increased danger back in Sudan, which considers it to be an enemy state.

In September, the Sudanese Foreign Minister announced that visiting Israel was a criminal offense and accused those who do of participation in a Zionist plot against Khartoum. It called on the Egyptian government to punish Sudanese caught trying to make it to the Jewish state.

HRW criticized Cairo for not taking Sudan’s hostility towards Israel into account when dealing with refugees who have traveled there. It says Khartoum’s stance gives extra urgency to the issue of forced repatriation.

"In the face of Sudan's record of rights abuses and its hostility toward its citizens who seek refuge in Israel, Egypt's apparent decision to forcibly return Sudanese asylum seekers is unconscionable," Whitson said.

Israel captured the group of migrants and refugees on Aug. 17 after they crossed the mountainous Sinai desert with the help of human traffickers. They were returned to Egypt less than 24 hours after their detention and were not allowed to present asylum claims, in violation of international law.

Israel was widely criticized for sending the refugees back to Egypt, where they complain of racism and random violence at the hands of Egyptian police and civilians.

Earlier in the summer, Israeli border police claimed to witness their Egyptian counterparts gun down a group of refugees running for the border. A young mother was killed in the incident, and several others were seriously wounded.