[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.

                          ____________________