Evidence of meeting #27 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ontario.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Prof. Robert Martin
I've often seen the phrase “kangaroo courts” used, and that's not a bad characterization.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
We unfortunately are out of time for this set of questions.
We do have a moment before we reach our 1 p.m. deadline. I have to be pretty firm on that, but because of the unusual nature of the commentary, I'm just going to ask two questions myself.
First of all, I'm assuming that the reference to hanging Richard Warman was meant as a metaphorical statement, as opposed to an actual advocacy.
12:55 p.m.
Prof. Robert Martin
Had it been anything more, it would have been a crime. It was metaphorical.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Secondly, with regard to Senator Cools, we've all been dancing around what was actually said on the Free Dominion website. I am assuming that the moderators or administrators of Free Dominion have removed the comments, which means they aren't available for us to inspect.
12:55 p.m.
Prof. Robert Martin
They were removed.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
I'll just ask this. I'm assuming this was not a matter of personal libel against the personal character of Senator Cools, but rather was a derogatory reference to her race that Mr. Warman posted on the website.
12:55 p.m.
Prof. Robert Martin
To her race and her sex.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
I just wanted to confirm that, so we would all be clear on those things.
That completes the time we have.
12:55 p.m.
Prof. Robert Martin
I would prefer not to, but if you wish, I will repeat the phrase.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
No, I think we can all guess. I assume it's a reference to her race that begins with the letter “n.”
12:55 p.m.
Prof. Robert Martin
Yes.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
We were all guessing at that, but I wanted to be clear.
I think we've dealt with this matter, so I'll just suspend for a moment while we move on to the matters regarding Iran.
Thanks very much, everybody.
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
We're back in session. We are still public.
We will go in camera for consideration of the draft report, but first Professor Cotler has a statement that was raised with us earlier.
Professor, I'll turn the floor over to you.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
These hearings have taken place at an important moment of remembrance and reminder historically. In other words, we've been meeting in the aftermath of the 60th anniversary of the genocide convention, sometimes spoken of as the “never again convention”, and on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sometimes spoken of as the Magna Carta of human rights, and it would be appropriate to ask ourselves at the conclusion of these hearings regarding Iran, in this historical perspective, what have we learned and what must we do?
I want to suggest to you that there are three major lessons of the last 60 years that find expression in Ahmadinejad's Iran. And I use the term “Ahmadinejad's Iran” because I want to distinguish that from the people and public of Iran, who are otherwise the objects and targets of massive domestic repression, as we have been witnessing yet again these last few days.
What we are seeing in Ahmadinejad's Iran of relevance to our hearing has been the emergence of it as the epicentre of the toxic convergence of the advocacy of the most horrific of crimes, namely genocide. This is a crime whose name we should even shudder to mention, embedded in the most virulent of hatreds, namely anti-Semitism, and underpinned by the illegal pursuit of atomic weapons in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions—again, we've heard witnesses' testimony on that—dramatized by the parading in the streets of Tehran and festooned on billboards and the like of a Shahab-3 missile draped in the emblem, “wipe Israel off the map”, which we have certainly read about, but not always the other four words, as the Imam says, namely, that this is a religiously sanctioned incitement to genocide that denies the Holocaust while it incites to a new one, warning Muslims that if they recognize Israel, they will burn in the umma of Islam. It engages in a systematic repression of domestic rights, of which the Bahá'í religious minority, and the testimony attending it in these hearings, has been a case study.
But while we have been focusing on the nuclear in the international community, there is a danger of ignoring and sanitizing the genocidal context in which the nuclear takes place and makes the nuclear so threatening. In other words, Mr. Chairman, if we're to focus only on the nuclear, we might as well focus on Pakistan, which already has nuclear weapons. The reason we focus as well on Iran is because of what I would call the convergence of the three: namely, the nuclear, genocidal, and rights-violating Iran. That is the context that makes the nuclear as threatening as it is.
Now, it was this understanding of these three major lessons of history with which I began, and it is the corresponding convergence of these three major dynamics of the nuclear, the genocidal, and the rights-violating dimensions that resulted in some 50 leading international law scholars, genocide experts, and victims of genocide initiating and endorsing a petition that is titled “The Danger of a Genocidal, Rights-Violating and Nuclear Iran: The Responsibility to Prevent Petition”, which I'm pleased to table here today.
In addition, I introduced a bill with respect to combatting incitement to genocide, domestic repression and nuclear armament.
What the petition demonstrates--and I should mention in terms of some of the signatories that it includes some distinguished signatories, such as Madam Justice Louise Arbour, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Salih Mahmoud Osman, a survivor of the killing field in Darfur and a member of Parliament there, Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel, and the like, and as I say, leading international law scholars--and what the Iran Accountability Act has been organized around is a particular finding of fact and conclusion of law that should underpin our hearings and indeed our own appreciation of one salient factual legal matter, and that is that Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide in violation of the genocide convention's prohibition.
Iran has already gone down the road to genocide. One of our witnesses, Professor Gregory Stanton, the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and the architect of the “Eight Stages of Genocide”, which has emerged as a template for inquiry into this issue, testified before this committee that Iran has already passed through the first six stages of genocide. There is, therefore, a corresponding responsibility to prevent, which is characterized in the petition by the international legal scholars as a jus cogens obligation, an international legal obligation of the highest order of overriding legal imperatives. As it is put, and I don't like to use the Latin, but that is how it has become framed in international law, erga omnes, against all, it involves obligations incumbent on all parties in the international community to prevent and protect.
I might add that this responsibility to prevent is not only to be found in the genocide convention. It's also in the statutes for the establishment of international tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. And the prohibition on incitement to genocide is also part of the International Criminal Court, and that's why one speaks of it in such a jus cogens character.
What I'd like to do, and with this I will summarize the rest of my presentation, is first outline an outline: the eight precursors to genocide in Ahmadinejad's Iran, which are set forth more fully in the petition; the critical mass of dynamics that are constitutive of the crime of incitement; and why Professor Stanton argued that Iran has passed through the first six stages of genocide. Secondly, I'll outline the remedies to combat it.
Let me begin first with the precursors, and I'm going to go through them in very short order.
The first is what has been referred to by genocide scholars as the delegitimization, denial, and exclusion of the alien other. As Dr. Professor Stanton put it, what genocidaires do is classify the alien other, the targeted state and people, as illegitimate and unworthy of the universe of obligation. As Helen Fein says, you try to put the targeted group or state outside the boundaries of human obligation. You single them out for enmity and opprobrium. This is what has happened in Ahmadinejad's Iran, which characterizes the Jewish people and the State of Israel as a forged nation, as a fabricated people, and as an illegal state warranting their demise. All the evil people of the world, all the evil Jews, have been gathered there. That's precursor number one, which is set forth more fully in the petition.
I might add, with regard to each of these precursors, that there is comprehensive and authoritative and documented evidence in the petition that underpins each of the precursors.
Second, from singling out, from delegitimization and denial, one moves to dehumanization of Israel and the Jews and to the use of epidemiological metaphors reminiscent of Nazi-like dehumanization of the Jews. Mr. Chairman, I never make an analogy with the Holocaust. I'm making the analogy only with respect to the language of incitement.
Just as the Nazis referred to the Jews as vermin, and the Hutus referred to the Tutsis as cockroaches, so you can find--and maybe I'll just read this into the record, in French--that Israel and the Jews are referred to
like a disgraceful stain on the clothing of the Islamic world, a cancerous tumour, a repulsive germ, a decaying body, a cancerous bacteria.
I can go on, but I think the point is made here with respect to this second precursor, that of dehumanization, characterizing the targeted state and people as being less than human, if not subhuman.
The third is the demonization, and in this case the demonization of Israel and the Jew as a dangerous, diabolical, devil-like, satanic figure. In a word, it is dehumanization coupled with demonization, subhuman coupled with the threatening diabolical, which acts, again, as part of the precursors to genocide.
The fourth is Holocaust denial. It's known before this committee. I need not say anything other than to say that not only is it an assault on justice and memory and truth, but in fact the Jews are accused of fabricating this “hoax” of Holocaust denial, thereby adding to the dehumanization and demonization to which I formerly referred.
The fifth is what genocide experts refer to as a false accusation in the mirror. This is where the génocidaires invoked this strategy to convince their own people, in this instance Iranian Muslims, that if the diabolical and murderous other is not attacked, then in this instance Islam and Iran will fall victim to this diabolical evil, thereby framing its own aggression as self-defence. It's a leitmotif that's been used the Nazis, it was used by the génocidaires in the Balkans, Rwanda, and Darfur. It provides psychological justification for genocide. In other words, not only is this alien other fabricated, illegitimate, inhuman, and demonic, but it is also threatening and therefore it has to be attacked.
The sixth is a notion of satanic Jews as the enemies of humanity, not just the enemies of Islam but the enemies of humanity, the poisoners of the international wells. The struggle against this demonic enemy must continue; it is religiously sanctioned until this demonic enemy is vanquished.
Seventh is the financing and support and arming of two terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, which, yes, are listed as terrorist entities in Canadian law, but what perhaps is not always appreciated is they are not only terrorist groups. They have an objective, which is genocidal, by their own acknowledgment. They have an ideology, which is anti-Semitic, a terrorism, which is instrumentalist, and a global reach, which speaks in terms of a global Islamic caliphate.
Finally, there are the inciting tropes of classical anti-Semitism that are set forth in the petition where the Jews are spoken of as the killers of children, as I say, the poisoners of the international wells, anti-Semitic trope.
So the question becomes, and with this I close: what do we do? The enduring lesson has been, throughout the last 60 years, that the Holocaust, and the genocides in Srebrenica, Rwanda, Darfur, occurred not only because of the machinery of death, but because of the state-sanctioned incitement to genocide. Now, tragically, we cannot do anything about those other genocides; they have already occurred. There is only one place in the world today, which has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide, that falls within this historical frame of reference, but where we have an opportunity and indeed an obligation to do something about it.
Here I remind us of the two other lessons I began with, the danger of indifference and inaction in the face of this incitement, and the impunity that encourages it. I say that because, Mr. Chairman, as we meet, not one state party to the genocide convention--and regrettably I include our own country--has undertaken any of the mandated remedies in international law in general, and the genocide convention in particular, in order to undertake their responsibility to prevent.
Madam Justice Louise Arbour and others have said in the petition that this is not a policy option, it is an international legal obligation of the first order. So our response must be not only to heed the precursors to genocide set forth in the petition and summarized in my remarks today, but to invoke the panoply of legal remedies, the corpus of the legal obligation to prevent.
Very quickly, one-liners regarding some of them, they have been mentioned before in testimony, so I don't want to duplicate. But any state party to the genocide convention can and must refer the international criminality of Ahmadinejad's Iran to the UN Security Council for accountability and related sanctions.
I find it shocking, and indeed as anomalous as it is shocking, that we've referred the matter of Iran's illicit pursuit of enriched uranium on the road to becoming an atomic power. In respect to it, there is not yet conclusive evidence, though the evidence does strongly indicate that's what Iran seeks to do. But we have not referred the state sanction incitement at the genocide in respect to which there is comprehensive, authoritative evidence.
When and should the leaders of Iran or any other country say, “The evidence regarding the nuclear on which we focused is not conclusive”, we can say, interestingly enough, “Go to the evidence regarding the genocidal incitement, which is conclusive, and there you will find the convergence of the two, in the statement that with one bomb we can wipe Israel off the map”. That's where you get the convergence of the nuclear with the genocidal, which makes the nuclear so dangerous, but you have to go to the genocidal in order to see that. What we have been doing thus far, regrettably, is by ignoring the genocidal, we've been sanitizing it and even undercutting the case for the nuclear.
A second remedy could be done immediately. One doesn't even have to go to the UN Security Council. The argument would be made, “Well, the UN Security Council may not act for many reasons that we know”. Any state party can initiate an interstate complaint against Iran, which is also, we need to be reminded, a state party to the genocide convention and which also has these obligations to prevent it. But rather than prevent, it actually in fact engages systematically in the incitement to take an interstate complaint against Iran before the International Court of Justice.
Thirdly, we can certainly call upon the UN Security Council--just call upon them, I'm not saying they will do it--to refer the matter of this international criminality of Ahmadinejad's Iran to the International Criminal Court for prospective investigation and prosecution because it is also a violation of a similar prohibition, exactly the same prohibition, word for word, in the International Criminal Court, prohibiting direct and public incitement to genocide as it exists in the genocide convention. Any state party can declare Ahmadinejad and those associated with him inadmissible to Canada. It's one of those astonishing things that Maher Arar is still regrettably on a United States watch list, but Ahmadinejad is not.
We have, in fact, through a commission of inquiry in Canada found that Maher Arar is not only innocent but an innocent victim of the actions of three governments. I won't go into it. Subsequently, we made an apology at the parliamentary and governmental level. Yet Maher Arar is still on the U.S. watch list, and Ahmadinejad is not, an anomaly that I suggest needs to be corrected. Any state party can set up a monitoring mechanism to monitor incitement and to develop sanctions specifically targeted to the incidents of incitement in order to render that the genocide there is accountable, and the like. We have suggested this in the private member's bill, the Iran Accountability Act, including, as well, freezing the assets of those engaged in the incitement as well as those who contribute to the nuclear and military infrastructure of Iran.
We have been doing this to expose the critical mass of human rights violations. What has been happening of late, I think, needs to be factored into our report as well. When Canada, to its credit, co-sponsors annually, at the United Nations General Assembly, the resolution respecting human rights violations in Iran, the testimony before these hearings should also be included as the evidentiary basis for that resolution which we co-sponsor.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, this I take from my Iranian human rights colleagues and the likes, such as Roya Boroumond, who testified before this committee: These remedies are not only obligatory under international law, but they are important ends in themselves. If you speak to the Iranian human rights people in and outside of Iran, they will tell you that the very invocation of these legal remedies would embolden the progressive forces in Iran. They would be looked to as an act of solidarity with victims of the human rights violations and otherwise in Iran. It would further tend to isolate President Ahmadinejad. It would tend to help promote regime change.
This is not the objective of what I am recommending today. I'm saying in consequence of undertaking our international legal obligations and the responsibility to prevent, the fallout may well be to help promote regime change and act as a catalyst on the way for enhanced sanctions. So I say at this point, heeding the lessons of history, at times such as these, qui s'excuse s'accuse--whoever remains indifferent will indict himself or herself.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
1:20 p.m.
Bloc
Jean Dorion Bloc Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC
I do not have any questions for the witness. I would just like to know whether it is possible to see what the petition says. I would like to take a closer look at what the authors are asking for.
1:20 p.m.
Mount Royal, Lib.
It is in English only, because it is an international petition. But I could give you....
1:20 p.m.
Mount Royal, Lib.
I can give you a summary in French. We prepared a French summary, but the request itself was in English.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
1:20 p.m.
A voice
Soon.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
It will take some time. It's 60 pages long.
I'm going to suggest right now that we suspend momentarily while we go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]