Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[Dr. Mojtaba Mahdavi]

That's a hard question. My short answer is moral and spiritual support for democratic movements, and, if possible, putting pressure on other fellow western governments to put human rights on their agenda. The first issue really should be human rights, not Iran's nuclear issue, not even Ahmadinejad's rhetoric against Israel or others. These are simply playing in their fields and with their cards.

[Renee C. Redman]

I'd have to agree. I'm not equipped to make suggestions to you as to whether you should encourage sanctions or not. But convincing countries to observe the human rights of their population is, as we know, a long-term effort.

I think one of the most important things Canada can do right now is to not let it fall off a high level of interest. It has to be brought up all the time. I think it has to be brought up in negotiations. I think it also needs to be brought up with the UN. I am not naive enough to think that all of a sudden one speech or one paper is going to change everything. I think it's a long-term effort, and I think Canada is in a good position to continue with that effort.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much for taking the time to be here and for your testimony. I just want to reconcile something.

Mr. Cotler mentioned he was talking to some people knowledgeable about Iran and felt that Iran was at a tipping point. I want to ask you that question, but I want to resolve something in my mind. You said there's a mindset that did not want to overthrow the government, yet both of you are actively working on a democratic movement. This government has no semblance of legitimacy as far as democracy is concerned. Help me to reconcile that, that it wouldn't be an overthrow. It would certainly have to be an overhaul. I'll leave that to you.

And are we at a tipping point in history as far as the Iranian people are concerned?

[Renee C. Redman]

I want to clarify something. My organization is not working for the democratic movement. Our position is that whoever is in power in Iran must observe human rights and that it's up to the people of Iran to decide what form of government they'd like.

He can address the history of Iran. I would just say that Iran has had a lot of revolutions in the last hundred years. This may be another tipping point.

[Dr. Mojtaba Mahdavi]

That's actually a very good question. If you ask the opposition, especially the exiled opposition, monarchies, mujahedeen, or some of the leftists, they will tell you that they simply want to overthrow the regime, get rid of it. But they have not succeeded in the past 30 years or so, and obviously they won't do it from here. It's thousands of kilometres away.

But when you ask the new generation in Iran, the children of the revolution, they will say they're not happy with the social, economic, and political policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Thanks to the actual revolution and some of the unintended consequences of the Islamic Republic, you have a new generation, a massive demographic change, a systematic paradigm shift, a new generation who's familiar with everything that's happening in the world.

But they are realists. They do cost-benefit analyses. They want to see what they can do, and they want to set goals. At this point, they are not seeing things in black and white, zero to 100. They're ready to work within the system. For this reason, they voted twice for Mohammad Khatami in 1997. We know that reformists failed to deliver on their promise, thanks to the structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In 2009, they were ready to play within the restricted system. They voted for one of the candidates of the establishment. None of these four candidates was revolutionary or radical. They realized that the regime is not going to tolerate even Mr. Mousavi or Mr. Karoubi. So what they see is this: they want radical change, but they know it's not possible at this point. This is the first thing.

The second thing is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a hybrid regime. It's a very complex system. It's not a totalitarian regime like North Korea or Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It's not a Stalinist, fascist, or Nazi regime. It's a combination of totalitarian and authoritarian, with some quasi-democratic elements in it. What Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karoubi and some of the reformists, former President Khatami, really want to do is empower the pluralist and democratic nature of the constitution. Is it possible? I'm not optimistic about this, because the lion's share of power goes to the Vali-e-Faghih, the supreme leader, and the reformists are not really powerful. But they wanted to try it, so they are resolving this so-called contradiction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I had one question that I think you may have partially answered, but I want to make sure I haven't misunderstood. You made reference to people being accused of trying to create a velvet revolution. I assume that was a reference to what happened in Czechoslovakia.

One of our witnesses several months ago described how he had been arrested, imprisoned, and forced to confess to trying to create what he referred to as a “colour revolution”. I wasn't sure if that was a reference to what occurred in Ukraine, with their orange revolution.

Is that what is going on here? We see an opposition trying to do things that were done in other countries. They have a democratic constitution, and they want to see it enforced. It's a revolution in the sense of pushing out a group of people. But is it a revolution in the sense of replacing the constitution or overthrowing it?

[Dr. Mojtaba Mahdavi]

If the velvet revolution means a United States-backed, made-up revolution, rather than an authentic one, if it means a foreign-made uprising, what's happening in Iran is not a velvet revolution. It's an authentic social civil rights movement.

But if velvet revolution means a peaceful evolutionary process that hates violence and wants to empower the good side of the constitution, then this term may be appropriate. What's happening in Iran is not coloured, but it's green. It's not a velvet revolution, but it's a peaceful civil rights movement. It's an authentic movement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Maybe Professor Mahdavi can elaborate further on his thoughts.

I do agree that the reform has to come from within and it has to be indigenous. I do see a paradigm shifting as well, especially with the young people. I think in some large part the Internet has played a great role in terms of informing them of what's happening on the ground that they're not getting from their government.

But I don't buy into the argument that the only thing we can do is moral and spiritual. I rather think we can act more effectively than just prayers on the international scene. I do think there is a moral position that Canada has to take that goes beyond just words.

Taking aside the military option, which is not an option at all, there are the diplomatic and multilateral efforts that we can do. But you have sort of discarded that. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure why you would discount even the multilateral efforts and the diplomatic efforts that can be taken by Canada on that front.

[Dr. Mojtaba Mahdavi]

I wish that international politics were not based on the realpolitik. But the fact is, international politics are based on the realpolitik, which always means that political and economic interests are the first things. I wish international politics were based on human rights, democracy, and all of these things, but, quite frankly, this is not what we see. Democracy and human rights always come second next to the political and economic interests.

As I mentioned to a colleague here, moral and spiritual support, yes, but of course if Canada can do much to put human rights and democracy as the first and foremost issue, in terms of pursuing countries like the United States or others who have some form of dialogue with Iran, then, yes, we should do this.

On diplomatic boycotts, yes, but look at what's happening now between Iran and Canada. They do not have good relations. I'm not sure how much power Canada has at this point to put pressure on the Iranian government in the absence of any meaningful dialogue or diplomatic relations. I don't know what else we can do but put pressure on governments and the United States--which has some sort of dialogue with Iran--that democracy and human rights should be the first and foremost issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm going to see the clock as being five minutes to two o'clock in order to allow Mr. Sweet to ask an additional question.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't think I'll need five minutes. I just have one question, but it's another tough one. I thought I'd try to explore this a bit.

We had some testimony previously that indicated some concern about the manipulative nature of this regime in Iran. The concern is that it's using dialogue about the nuclear issue to distract countries that would engage on human rights, that they'd be so happy about being able to have access to Iran on the nuclear, that Iran, the regime, could deal with the opposition with impunity and continue this violent crackdown on human rights. That's my concern.

I know you're pro-dialogue, or at least you mentioned it was the lesser of evils. This is my concern, and I'm asking if you have any input around dealing with such a thing and the manipulative nature of that regime.

[Dr. Mojtaba Mahdavi]

Yes, as you mentioned, that is another tough question. In a tough dialogue, human rights would be the first issue.

On the nuclear issue, I don't know actually. Some people suggest that a nuclear Iran with a nuclear bomb would be immune in the sense that no one could really overthrow Iran if it went nuclear. I personally don't buy this argument because look at what happened to the Soviet Union. Internal dynamism basically overthrew the whole system and regime.

What some of the realists—even in the United States, people like Brzezinski and others—suggest is that sooner or later Iran will be a nuclear power, and let's face it, that is the issue. I don't think they are irrational in the sense that they will do stupid things.

This struggle we have in the Middle East is about the balance of power and who has the monopoly, or the nuclear issue. But when it goes to the dialogue, if the question is that Iran really wants to use dialogue in order to go with its nuclear policy, and gets attention on the democratic and human rights issue, I guess western governments can put human rights and democracy first and foremost on the agenda. Put this on the agenda as the first issue and talk about this. I know this is not going to happen, thanks to the realpolitik of international politics. I don't think the nuclear issue should be the weak point of Iran's dialogue with the west. I understand, of course, they are going to misuse it. There is no way we can basically hinder this process, but between bad and worse, let's say we would be having a dialogue in order to put some form of pressure on Iran. Imagine if you simply boycott Iran and we have no dialogue. What source of pressure or instrument would we have to pursue on policy? Would it be military attack or economic sanctions? International courts are what some of the opposition actually, including Akbar Ganji of Iran, are simply calling for, for crimes against humanity.

Is it workable at this point? Is it possible? What sorts of facts do we have at this point? Is it really a genocide happening in Iran? There are different ways. I'm not a lawyer. At this point, I don't know because these terms have their own legal interpretation for definite crimes, and “crimes against humanity” has its own definition. For sure, there have been systematic violations of human rights and crimes against humanity, even if you kill one person, but I don't know even the realpolitik at this point. Is it doable at least in the short term? I'm not really an optimist.

Iran's democratic movement is caught between a rock and a hard place, as you say. To some extent, domestically these guys are masters at playing with different cards to consolidate their power and the real politics of international politics and diversity in international politics. Russia and China have their own interests in Iran. For western countries, Europe—versus the United States—has its own interest. At this point, we know that the United States' priority is security in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they need Iran for this dialogue. To some extent they are under pressure by Israeli lobbies on the issue of nuclear policy, because Israel definitely wants to be the only nuclear guy in the Middle East. This means that the issues of human rights, democracy, and all of these are secondary and marginal. This is the difficulty of Iran's democratic movement.

I am grateful to all of you who care about human rights and democracy, and to the Canadian government, which is one of the rare western governments in the world that actually cares about human rights and democracy as an important issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

That concludes this meeting. We've run out of time.

I am grateful, as is the whole subcommittee, to both of you for taking the time to come here at no small inconvenience to you. Thank you.

We are adjourned.