[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 129 (Wednesday, July 26, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3611-S3612]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SALAH el DEEN SOLTAN
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak of the importance of
Holocaust education and engagement that can help us push back against
the rising tide of anti-Semitism we are seeing nowadays, in our country
and across the world.
As the Special Representative on Anti-Semitism, Racism and
Intolerance for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, as many of my colleagues know, I
have made it a personal priority to address the rise of anti-Semitism.
As anti-Semitism is increasing at home and abroad, it is important to
come together to address anti-Semitism, and call out the hate when we
see or hear it before it becomes more ingrained in our society.
At the same time, we should celebrate those occasions when a person
with a history of making anti-Semitic statements sees the light and
realizes the error of his ways, renounces his past statements, and vows
never to repeat them. Happily, we have an example of just such a case
that I would like to bring to the attention of Senate and the American
people.
I would like to submit into the Congressional Record a noteworthy
letter from Salah el Deen Soltan, a U.S. person, who wrote last month
to his newest grandson, to be shared with other grandchildren, most of
whom he hasn't met after a decade in wrongful detention in Egypt.
As Human Rights Watch stated in a report published on May 3, 2023,
calling for Soltan to be released from his unjust imprisonment in one
of Cairo's most notorious jails:
Before moving to the United States, Soltan was a professor
of Islamic Law at Cairo University. He later founded and
served as the president of the Islamic American University in
Dearborn, Michigan from 1999 to 2004. As a legal US permanent
resident, Soltan lived and worked in the US for over a decade
before his arrest in Egypt in September 2013 for opposing the
military's ousting of elected president Mohamed Morsi. A
court sentenced Soltan to life in prison in September 2017 in
a mass trial marred by extensive due process and fair trial
violations. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention determined in 2018 that his arrest was arbitrary,
as the authorities failed to provide credible evidence of
wrongdoing, and that his prosecution violated the right to
political participation and freedoms of peaceful assembly and
expression.
In the coming weeks, Soltan will have served a full decade in
Egyptian jails. During this time, he had time to reflect on his
personal history of making crude and cruel anti-Semitic statements to
his students and followers over the years. So he wrote a letter, that
has been smuggled out of prison and delivered to his family.
In this letter, Soltan addresses his previously held anti-Semitic
positions and remarks, apologizes for them and disavows them. In
solitary confinement, Soltan reflects on his past, corrects the record
for his grandson, and lays out how would like to be remembered in case
he never gets the opportunity to meet his grandchildren.
As he writes:
My previous statements and stances are wrong and the best
of us are those who reflect, hold oneself accountable and
repent. Here I am, reflecting and seeking forgiveness from
God for the harm that may have been inflicted upon anyone. I
apologize to everyone harmed by what I said and called for. I
leave behind these prison walls all forms of anger, hate and
coarseness. I bear the burden of upholding the sanctity of
human life, speaking truth and defending it wherever it may
be. I had only intended to stand up for justice but what I
did resulted in the exact opposite of the intent; and became
a reason for further oppression, suffering and
marginalization of the innocent. In fact, my oppressors used
my decade-old stances to justify and fend off pressure from
concerned western parties about my release.
It is never too late for remorse and redemption.
In 2020, we saw several Muslim-majority Middle Eastern governments
normalize diplomatic relations with Israel with the historic
announcement of the Abraham Accords. And in the years since, there has
been a real thawing of the hostility toward the Jewish state in some of
the neighboring countries. Overcoming decades of official hostility
toward the government and people of Israel, broadcast through official
media outlets, and often imbued with blatant anti-Semitism, will take
time. But a journey begins with a single step. And the reconciliation
of the peoples of the region begins with one person.
Together, we can choose peace and forgiveness, rather than be
prisoners of past differences. In that spirit and consistent with the
Jewish tradition of Teshuva, in which people can see the error of their
ways and vow never to repeat that which has offended the Creator, I
welcome and embrace Salah Soltan's change of heart. Especially given
his difficult circumstances, I find it refreshing and notable that he
has taken the time and the trouble to send a heartfelt message to his
grandchildren. He has accepted responsibility for his previous hateful
words and is seeking forgiveness from those harmed by it.
This September, Soltan will have been imprisoned for a decade in
Egyptian prisons where human rights organizations have estimated there
to be over 60,000 political prisoners. Last May, more than 50 human
rights organizations released a joint statement noting that Soltan is
at serious risk of death due to deteriorating health conditions.
In recent weeks, Egypt has started to correct course with the release
of two high-profile detainees. I urge President Sisi to extend his
Presidential pardon to Soltan, so that he may leave Egypt and be
reunited with his family.
I ask unanimous consent that the complete text of the letter written
by Salah el Deen Soltan to his grandchildren be printed in full at this
point in the Congressional Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
My Dearest Beloved Grandson, Salah Binyameen: Ever since I
learned of your birth and that you will bear my name, I have
been praying for you and constantly thinking about you. I
fervently pray to God Almighty that you become a positive
force in our community and the world at large. It is no
secret that you were born during one of the most challenging
periods of my imprisonment, yet news of your birth brought me
immense solace and joy. Your coming is a reminder of the time
that has passed, my fifth grandson, the fourth of whom I have
not met or spent time with because of my decade-long wrongful
imprisonment in solitary confinement. The passing years have
been arduous, and I feel as though time slips away from me
without anyone to share my happiness or alleviate my
solitude.
Dearest grandson, Salah, enduring a decade of imprisonment
and torture, I found solace only in God. The darkness of my
solitude has revealed many certainties and has granted me
clarity about my past with all of its good and bad,
particularly as I witness death so frequently around me. I
feel as if I stared death in the eyes while lying on the
ground, paralyzed and denied help and medicine for days.
During those helpless moments, all I could do was ponder:
Will I ever have the opportunity to see you? What will you
come to know of me? If you never meet me, who will be your
source of information about me? So, I've decided to write you
a series of letters, this being the first, so that you may
come to know me as I am. I want you to understand who I am,
what my values are, and what I stand for.
My dearest Salah, I have always believed, and will continue
to believe, that justice is the bedrock of faith. Freedom and
justice are the imperatives of our religious beliefs. I have
always prayed for divine guidance towards truth, and for
inspiration to stand up for the distressed and most
marginalized. In the depths of my suffering, I question
whether I have consistently lived up to those ideals. I am
grateful to God for the guidance on the things I got right
and for forgiveness on those that I got wrong. Allah Himself
swore by the sanctity of the questioning soul: ``And I swear
by the reproaching soul'' (Quran 75:2). None of us is immune,
not even from the gravest of errors, and repentance is a
virtue of a sound heart.
The first of these revisions occurred in the immediate
aftermath of the 2013 coup and
[[Page S3612]]
the gruesome Rabaa Massacre. I penned an Op-Ed to the
Egyptian people apologizing for the Islamist Political
movements' political mistakes. My decade in solitude that
followed compelled me to delve further inwards, to think and
rethink. When your father and I shared a prison cell, I
engaged in deep contemplations and introspections. Those were
both bitter and sweet days, I miss him so much. We engaged in
endless debates as I contemplated the meaning of justice,
injustice, and advocating for the most disenfranchised. I
pondered anger, violence, righteousness, the common good, and
reform. I held myself accountable, questioning whether I
adhered to my intellectual commitments for the benefit of all
or only for certain groups. I reflected on my intellectual
journey from Egypt to the United States, Bahrain, and beyond.
I have learned and grown and want to acknowledge my regrets
and mistakes, as acknowledging what is right and wrong is the
beginning of wisdom.
The Palestinian cause shaped my generation's worldview and
awakened my political consciousness and activism. It laid the
foundations for my understanding of justice, starting from my
elementary school days until I obtained my Ph.D. in Islamic
jurisprudence. For many years, I allowed my anger to inform
my reactions to the senseless bloodshed, and the desecration
of sacred sites and to drive my approach to the Palestinian
issue privately and publicly. I focused on the losses and
struggles of the Palestinian people and their powerlessness
and while then as now, many more Palestinians have been
injured and killed. My impassioned defense of the oppressed
in the Muslim world in those days relied on the common
rhetoric that was fueled by anger which turned to hate. As
the death toll mounted, my statements sometimes veered toward
antisemitism. In doing so, I displayed a blind rage that
contradicted the fundamental principles of our beautiful
religion. We are a religion of tolerance and compassion
toward all religions and such rhetoric has no place in our
community or our pursuit of justice. I deeply regret times
when I engaged in that kind of rhetoric that I shudder to
recall and condemn all rhetoric that is discriminatory,
hateful and violent. The ends can never justify the means and
noble objectives can only be attained through noble methods.
Let me be clear, my commitment to justice for the Palestinian
people remains steadfast, as is my belief that the many paths
towards justice and peace do not require demonization of the
other. Salah, justice and solidarity must extend to those
with whom we disagree. In fact, our true commitment to these
ideals is measured by how we apply them to those who differ
from us.
Look at me now, Salah; I find myself in a country with a
Muslim ruler, where the judge, warden, officer, and guards
who wrongfully imprison, torture and deny me basic medical
needs are all Muslim. While those who stand up for me (and
others) are individuals who share little in common with me,
except for our shared belief in justice and freedom. I recall
how Eric Lewis, a Jewish lawyer and now a dear friend of the
family, was the sole international lawyer permitted to visit
a political prisoner in Egyptian prisons. I remember how
Andrea Prasow, a Jewish human rights lawyer, assumed your
father's position as the Executive Director of a rights
organization advocating on behalf of Arab political
prisoners. Senators Patrick Leahy (liberal Christian), and
the late John McCain (Conservative Christian) also come to
mind. These individuals, spanning the political spectrum,
have dedicated their professional careers to advocating for
the oppressed despite their respective political and
ideological differences. All of these contradictions and
ironies have compelled me to see the error in some of my
previous beliefs, statements and positions.
My previous statements and stances are wrong and the best
of us are those who reflect, hold oneself accountable and
repent. Here I am, reflecting and seeking forgiveness from
God for the harm that may have been inflicted upon anyone. I
apologize to everyone harmed by what I said and called for. I
leave behind these prison walls all forms of anger, hate and
coarseness. I bear the burden of upholding the sanctity of
human life, speaking truth and defending it wherever it may
be.
I had only intended to stand up for justice, but what I did
resulted in the exact opposite of the intent; and became a
reason for further oppression, suffering and marginalization
of the innocent. In fact, my oppressors used my decade-old
stances to justify and fend off pressure from concerned
western parties about my release.
Lastly, my dearest grandson, I am writing to you in pursuit
of a world that leads with love and eschews hatred. Life is
far too short and precious to allow it to be dominated by
anger. I urge you to set your moral compass towards justice
and truth. Defend those with every peaceful means at your
disposal. I hope you grow up to build a world where
tolerance, peace and coexistence despite differences is the
norm. My beloved, I pray that you grow up knowing and being
proud of your grandfather and everything he stood for. I love
you, and I long for the opportunity to meet you, whether it
is in this life or in the corridors of Paradise in the one
after. Oh God, please make me better than they think, and
forgive me for what they do not know.
Your loving grandfather,
Salah el Deen Soltan,
16/6/2023,
27/11/1444.
____________________