ADLY ABADIR HASN'T VISITED his native land even once in the past 19 years. Yet the subversive 85-year-old Coptic businessman, who is currently based in Switzerland, still maintains that what he call’s Egypt’s “discriminatory policies” are meant to drive Copts away from their homeland. To draw the world’s attention to the issue, Abadir has announced he will sponsor an international conference to be held in Washington, DC, on November 16-18.

“The conference would definitely serve the Coptic cause because Copts at home can neither complain nor open their mouths,” Abadir alleges in a phone call from Switzerland.

Attendees are expected to include Copts living in Egypt as well as the Coptic diaspora. According to Abadir, representatives from international human rights organizations have also been invited as well as, he claims, NDP heavyweight Gamal Mubarak.

But some leaders of the Coptic community in Egypt aren’t certain they want help from foreign-based activists such as Abadir, particularly after a rare outbreak of sectarian violence claimed three lives in Alexandria last month when several thousand Muslim demonstrators clashed with police as they protested the release of a two-year-old DVD recording of a play titled “Once I Was Blind but Now I See.” The play was performed only once, at Alexandria’s St. George’s Church, in 2003.

In the wake of the violence, Egyptian Coptic leaders including His Holiness Pope Shenouda III joined President Hosni Mubarak and Sheikh Al-Azhar Mohamed Sayed Tantawi in calling for more interfaith dialogue. Whether Abadir can play a role in that dialogue remains to be seen.

Abadir’s announcement, made before the day of violence in Alexandria, enraged several critics who noted that conference speakers are expected to address a number of members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

Michael Meunier, president of the US Copts Association and the conference’s keynote speaker, counters that the Coptic diaspora has always sought US intervention on behalf of Copts. “That is what we have worked for, for years. However, I should clarify here that the intervention we ask for is not military, as some have accused us, but rather political intervention,” Meunier says.

“The US Copts Association has had close to 10 years of working relationship with various members of Congress and its committees,” he adds. “As such, we have approached many of our friends with the idea of an official function in Congress to highlight the condition of the Copts and bring it to the world’s attention. These friends of the US Copts Association and of the Copts in general have agreed to co-sponsor an event that will provide the desired legitimacy to the conference.”

At press time, Meunier was not yet sure whether he would be testifying before Congress in a hearing or holding a private briefing for interested members of Congress.

Speaking on condition they not be identified, sources at the US Embassy in Cairo have clarified that the conference will not be held under the auspices of Congress itself, as has been claimed in the Egyptian press.

Under the American International Religious Freedom Act passed in 1998, the US Administration is entitled to impose unilateral sanctions on countries designated as “Countries of Particular Concern” due to their poor record on religious freedom.

“The relationship between Egypt and the US is an important relationship, and since we are both American and Egyptian citizens, we are keen to make sure that Egypt adheres to US standards when it comes to minorities and their rights,” adds Meunier.

Last year, Abadir sponsored a similar conference in Zurich attended by representatives of Coptic associations based in the West. “There are 1.5 million Copts living in the diaspora, 15 percent of the total number of Copts. Do you think these people left home because they were well treated?” Abadir asks.

Abadir adds that a number of Muslim intellectuals from Egypt were invited and are expected to attend, which he believes refutes critics’ claims that his conference would foment sectarianism. He declines, however, to disclose their identities to avoid “retaliation” against them.

Last year’s conference endorsed a number of resolutions, including some calling for “the total separation between religion and state through constitutional reforms,” the lifting of government restrictions on the construction of churches, allocation of 10-15 percent of parliamentary seats and government-appointed positions to Copts, and reforming school curriculums to promote religious tolerance.

Three Copts held seats in the outgoing 2000-05 Parliament. The Egyptian constitution states that Egypt is an Islamic state and that the Shariah is the primary source of legislation.

“I do not expect the conference to come up with new resolutions, but our past resolutions will be endorsed by all human rights organizations and associations advocating freedom of religion. Also, our resolutions will be supported by a big number of Egyptian Muslim writers, scientists, journalists and those who are dissatisfied with the regime,” says Abadir.

For his part Meunier expects the conference’s resolutions to go unheeded by the Egyptian government.

“After our first conference in Zurich, to which we invited Egyptian officials, all of whom declined, we sent them our resolutions and asked for their response,” Meunier alleges. “We never heard from them. My guess is that they will do the same this time.”

Here in Egypt, Shubra El-Kheima’s Bishop Marcos expresses vehement opposition to the conference, insisting that the Coptic issue should be discussed at home.

“We always discuss our concerns at home and not abroad. Thank God His Holiness Pope Shenouda III and President Hosni Mubarak are on very good terms, which allows us to discuss our matters frankly, and we are sure they will be addressed by good relationships,” says the bishop, stressing that Copt concerns should be only discussed by the Pope and the President.

Ahead of the presidential elections, the Orthodox Church’s Holy Senate, headed by Shenouda, announced its endorsement of Mubarak, which annoyed several Copt activists and intellectuals who accused the church of meddling in politics.

While rejecting the diaspora’s allegations of state-sponsored persecution, the bishop does say there are areas in which Egyptian Copts are working for change.

“There is no persecution of Copts, but there are some laws and traditions that we want to change. We want a unified code for the construction of houses of worship, freedom of belief in a sense that allows Christian converts to Islam to embrace Christianity if they change their minds, especially that Islam stipulates that there is no coercion in faith. We also want Christians to have space in the media,” clarifies Marcos.

The construction of new churches is governed by an Ottoman edict known as “The Hamayouni Decree” dating to the mid-19th century. The contemporary interpretation of the decree stipulates that non-Muslim houses of worship cannot be constructed without a presidential decree.

Abadir disagrees with Marcos and maintains there is persecution against Copts in Egypt. He vows to show conference attendees graphic photographs and video recordings illustrating aspects of persecution.

Last year, tensions erupted between the church and the state over the disappearance of a priest’s wife and her alleged conversion to Islam. Hundreds of Copts rallied inside the Coptic Cathedral to protest the so-called “forced conversion” of Copt females. The Pope went into seclusion in a desert monastery to object the detention of a number of Copt demonstrators and the state’s approach to the crisis. Tensions did not ease until the police handed over the woman, Wafaa Costantine, who reportedly affirmed her adherence to Christianity, to the church and released Copt detainees.

In April, Abadir announced from Switzerland that he would run for president, but changed his mind after deciding that the presidential elections were no more than “a theatrical play.”

“I wanted to show that Copts were there they were not just parasites but the country’s intelligentsia,” says Abadir, who was implicated in a corruption scandal in the 1980s. He says he was acquitted by the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest appellate tribunal.

There are no official figures on the number of Copts living in the diaspora but there are believed to be over 1 million Egyptians living in the US, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe.

For Gamal Asaad, a former opposition MP and a prominent Copt political commentator, these 1 million Copts cannot speak on behalf of Copts at home.

“Copts living in the US hold American citizenship. We are not contesting their patriotism, but whoever wants to discuss the problems of Copts living in Egypt should come to Egypt and discuss them with those concerned on Egyptian soil. The Coptic issue will only become more complicated by discussing it abroad, internationalizing it and arousing external forces against [Egypt],” claims Asaad, who is always accused by the Coptic diaspora of flirting with the regime.

His theory is that the discourse of the Coptic diaspora deliberately breeds sectarianism to serve an American objective to interfere in Egyptian local affairs.

Youssef Seidom, the editor-in-chief of Watani (the Arabic word meaning “my homeland”), a weekly Coptic newspaper, who participated in last year’s conference, refutes Asaad’s allegations that such conferences serve foreign agendas. “The agenda and the resolutions of the Zurich conference are well documented and do not seek the arousal of any regime against Egypt or the imposition of sanctions on the country,” clarifies Seidhom.

He disagrees with his co-religionists at home, insisting that the conference would contribute to promoting the Coptic cause. “The objective of this conference is to keep the issue of Copts’ citizenship at the fore,” explains Seidhom, adding that all previous attempts to hold a national conference on the genuine grievances of Copts have ended in failure.

“We were left with two alternatives: either to surrender in despair and wait for destiny to sort out the problem or to hold conferences outside Egypt and that does not mean at all that we are trying to arouse any foreign country against Egypt,” says Seidhom

Emad Ramzy, the former secretary-general of the Supreme Council of the Protestant community, counters that, to the contrary, Abadir’s conference does indeed imply that Copts are seeking a foreign protection against the state.

“Copts living in Egypt never asked for such protection and would never ask for it and they do not want anybody to speak on their behalf. On the opposite, they speak out at the right moment using a decent and peaceful language,” says Ramzy.

He maintains that the government has sought to do away with several aspects of discrimination, referring to the President’s decree in late 1999 to make the restoration of all houses of worship, including churches, subject to the civil construction code. (In the past, the repair of a church needed a presidential decree.)

Ramzy also acknowledges the president’s decision in late 2002 to make Coptic Christmas, which falls on January 7, a national holiday.

“All these aspects show that there is an opening-up of sorts and that there are people who listen to the afflicted and heed their demands. However, we should not rush things until we instate citizenship and not sectarianism,” ends Ramzy. et