WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Tuesday, Congressman French Hill (AR-02) joined Eternal Word Television Network's News Nightly with Lauren Ashburn to discuss attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, and his bipartisan legislative efforts to encourage the Egyptian Government to take further steps to protect religious liberty. 

Key excerpts below: 

“We’re concerned about Christian communities all across the Middle East and the Levant, but Egypt is one of our richest, most traditional, Christian communities in the whole region. There are about ten million Christians, most of whom are Coptic Christians—a church founded by Saint Mark in Alexandria. It’s a big country with a large Christian population. They simply want to be treated fairly in the rule of law like all other Egyptians that take their water from the Nile.

“President Al Sisi is both a terrific economic policy and national security partner for the United States. He has backed Israel for almost 40 years now in the peace process. We want to make sure Egypt continues to share his vision across the whole country: one of acceptance, tolerance, and one that follows the rule of law. President Al Sisi has been a good partner to the United States, has had the right vision for religious tolerance in Egypt, but we need the laws at the local level to reflect his vision.

“We have a strong bipartisan group of over 50 members that support H.Res.49, which is my resolution to give protection to the Coptic Christians. We have met with [Egyptian leaders] many times on it, and I have met with President Al Sisi twice over the years. This is an important issue that reflects the full sense of partnership that we have with Egypt, but also institutionalizes that protection for all Egyptians on religious freedom and religious tolerance. President Al Sisi has been at the forefront of that. Recently, the Pope visited Abu Dhabi and [met] with the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Mosque, in Cairo. Both were preaching religious tolerance for all citizens of all countries, including Egypt.

“We’ve seen both President Al Sisi and the Grand Imam calling for religious tolerance in Egypt. That is the right mix that we want, but now we want to see the results, from both religious and societal points of view, that all Egyptians are treated with tolerance and equality across that big, beautiful, important country.”


Background:

H.Res.49 acknowledges the importance of the United States-Egypt partnership in advancing our common interests, recognizes Egypt’s need for certain government reforms, and calls on the Egyptian government to end the culture of impunity and make examples by arresting, prosecuting, and convicting those responsible for attacks on Christians. It also calls on the government to hold those local government officials accountable who fail to enforce the law.