Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on March 24th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Today, March 24, 2009, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development is holding its eighth meeting.

We have two witnesses with us today. Just before I introduce them, I should note, for the benefit of committee members, that this meeting is televised. I'm very pleased with that. Normally it's difficult for us to get a meeting televised, and in this hour-and-a-half slot, because we take second priority to full committees. As a consequence, the meeting on Thursday will be only an hour long, and it will start at one o'clock rather than at 12:30 in order to get a televised hearing for our next witness. However, today we have an hour and a half, and we are televised.

We have two very distinguished witnesses: Fakhteh Luna Zamani, who is president of the Association for Defence of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran; and Ahmad Batebi, who is a spokesperson for Human Rights Activists in Iran.

Madame Zamani produced a presentation, which I believe has been given to all of you. It was translated. I guess there's a map that goes with that as well, which is being circulated.

Mr. Batebi has also produced a report for us. Unfortunately, Mr. Batebi was contacted rather late by us. He had some problems getting through from the United States to Canada, and the result is that we haven't had a chance to translate his presentation into both official languages. The clerk is not permitted by our rules to distribute it, although we will get it translated as fast as possible. It is available, nevertheless, for members who wish to see it.

There is one other matter to draw to everybody's attention, and that is that Mr. Batebi was expecting he would have a translator. We tried to provide for it. Unfortunately, the clerk has informed me that the individual has not turned up. That creates a small problem. I think we'll deal with this by simply taking this very slowly. Madame Zamani has offered to assist with any translation issues that arise, if that seems reasonable to folks.

That being said, I'm going to invite our witnesses to start.

Madame Zamani, perhaps you could begin for us. Thank you.

[Fakhteh Zamani, President, Association for Defence of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran]

Distinguished members of the House of Commons, ladies and gentlemen, as most teenagers in Canada are getting ready for their summer break, Azerbaijani-Iranian Mohammad-Reza Avaz-Pour, who is just 17, will soon start serving his 15-month prison sentence. This young activist is no stranger to detention, imprisonment, and torture. Since the age of 13, he has been arrested and tortured repeatedly for the simple non-violent act of stating that his mother tongue will not die.

Five university activists, Huseyin Huseyni, Asghar Akbarzade, Ardashir Karimi, Behruz Alizade, and journalist Rahim Ghulami, were sentenced to five years' imprisonment by the Iranian revolutionary court on February 2, 2009, for the simple act of promoting their linguistic rights. Their trials were not published and were held without a lawyer present. They were charged with establishing illegal groups with the intention of disturbing national security.

These activists will be sent far away from their homes to dangerous prisons all over the country. This exile will prevent family visits, stop the flow of information about their conditions and basic welfare, and disconnect them from the outside world. It may sound ironic to say that their families are lucky, but at least they will know where their loved ones are. On June 11, 2008, the worst fear of one family came true. Twenty days after Ferhad Mohseni was arrested by officers of the Iranian intelligence, his tortured body was handed over to his family for immediate burial. He was 25 years old.

As Iran's uranium enrichment program continues to be a focus of international attention, the human rights situation in Iran continues to deteriorate. While the activities of various student and women's rights movements, as well as individual cases of journalists, writers, scholars, and human rights defenders are somewhat known to the outside world, regrettably this is not the case with minoritized non-Persian communities. The Azerbaijanis and other non-Persian ethnic groups are Iran's invisible population. For over 80 years, all non-Persian minorities in Iran have been victims of serious human rights violations. They have endured racial discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language and culture under both the Pahlavi and Islamic governments.

However, as a person of Azerbaijani background, I'm here to speak about this particular community. The minority community might well be a numerical majority but is kept in a minority situation in terms of access to power and resources. Since early childhood, I have been exposed to racial discrimination against the ethnic group into which I was born.

As a schoolgirl, I was not allowed to speak my mother tongue, Azerbaijani Turkic. I never saw textbooks written in my language. I was not taught to read and write my language or learn about my culture and history, as Iran's only official language, Farsi, the Persian language, was imposed on us. We were forced to learn the Persian language, Persian history, and Persian culture as the common identity of all Iranians.

I have experienced my ethnic group routinely and openly insulted on radio, television, and in the state-run national press. Even now, my people are depicted as intellectually challenged and are dehumanized as donkeys and cockroaches.

Racial discrimination in Iran is still with us. Banning of all non-Farsi languages continues. Ethnic groups, particularly Turks and Semites, are dehumanized. Iranian regimes have been the biggest threat to the realization of human rights for Azerbaijanis in Iran. Paralleling the internal repression by the government, the Azerbaijanis' struggle is ignored by the international community and remains invisible to western media such as the BBC and the European broadcasts in Persian. Even Iranian human rights activists often fail to mention Azerbaijanis and other minorities when they speak of human rights violations in Iran.

About three years ago, after hearing of widespread arrests in the Azerbaijani region of Iran and sensing a total indifference on the part of human rights groups toward all Azerbaijani cases, I came to the realization that I must take up the cause. Straightaway I could see the effects of repression and forced assimilation that the Azerbaijanis were subjected to in the course of the last century. I and others who have spoken about Azerbaijani rights have been regularly denounced as traitors and separatists and have faced insults and threats, not only by members of dominant Persian groups but also by some assimilated Persianized members of the minority communities.

Since the May 2006 uprising in the Azerbaijani region of Iran, Azerbaijani activists have been hit hard. Many are in prison, some are missing, and as I mentioned before, some were killed. Those of us fortunate enough to live in societies where we are entitled to full political rights can reach out to help the less fortunate. We are asking the international community to be aware of the situation in Iran and to take action on behalf of those who have no voice.

When I ask activists or family members who have lost a loved one or have someone in prison if they have a message, they ask me to speak about their struggle for freedom of expression, democracy, and human rights. But for them as Azerbaijanis, their struggle is also about eliminating racial discrimination and having the right to their own language and culture. Their message can be summarized in these words by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned Burmese leader: “Please use your liberty to promote ours”.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much as well. That was very concise.

Apparently the interpreter is on the way. It is my understanding, Mr. Batebi, that you are comfortable giving your presentation, but that the translator would be helpful for any questions you might receive. Is that correct?

[Ahmad Batebi, Spokesperson, Human Rights Activists in Iran]

[Witness speaks in Persian]

[Fakhteh Zamani]

[Witness speaks in Persian]

I am going to translate for him. He will try to give a very short presentation and he will concentrate on statistics, so I'll translate for him to the best of my ability as I mentioned. Persian is my second language.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Please. Thank you.

[Ahmad Batebi]

On behalf of myself and other human rights activists from within Iran, I would like to thank the committee and the Canadian government for paying attention to human rights issues in Iran without considering the political effects of this issue.

The violation of human rights in Iran is systematically done by the government. The problem is not only the violation of human rights, but the laws that support the violation are also a huge problem. Since the Iranian judicial system uses sharia laws and Islamic rules, the violation of human rights is embedded within the law and within the constitution.

I will provide a presentation based on the statistics I have from last year's violations. All this is in the area of freedom of expression. With the closing of the opposition newspapers, Iran had the highest rate in the past year. Millions of websites—

[Fakhteh Zamani]

I am rescued.

[Qumars Shahparaki, Interpreter/As an individual]

They gave me the wrong room number.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Well, what I'm going to suggest is that if you're ready to go we can recommence.

Please continue.

[Ahmad Batebi]

This report that I'm presenting here is not a complete report because we don't have enough observers to inform us about the situation in different cases. And these are only those that we have already investigated and realized are true. Even this limited information that is available to us may give you a picture about the number of violations of human rights that have happened in Iran. Iran has a high level in that respect.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to prepare a comprehensive report, because I was informed only three days ago that I would be able to present this case. It is therefore limited. But I tried to put that in statistical tables so that the matter will be very clear.

The first part of the report talks about media, mostly publications. There are many journalists and reporters who have lost their jobs and were forced out of Iran.

There are always reports from the national security centre—which is at the highest level with respect to security issues—so that all the news will not be passed to the public, like issues related to the violation of human rights or nuclear energy. Other people have shown their interest with respect to nuclear energy, but they said the matter should be mostly focused on economic issues rather than the nuclear issue.

Now I have statistics to give you. First, let's talk about closing down the newspapers. In the last year, there were 29 cases. There were 16 cases of the firing of reporters, 26 cases of reporters who have been tried, 73 cases of reporters who were called to court or summoned, 21 cases of journalists who were tried and found guilty, and 17 cases of arrests of journalists and reporters.

Now let's go to another subject, which is students. There was a high number of arrests of students, mostly activists. I use one case, which was very famous, as an example. In one of the large universities, one of the executives of the university sexually harassed a girl. Before the final conclusion of that assault, a student opened the gate, opened the room, went inside, and didn't let him do as much as he wanted. They had a film from the situation, but nobody permitted them to show that film. The result was that the man who did the assault got a better job. The students who were involved in opening the issue were forced to get out of the university.

I have more than 10 other cases that I can give you.

Now, we are still talking about the students. The number of cases in which they have been called to court or summoned was 139. The number of those who received bail was 66; tried and condemned, 77; deprived from education, 234. There have been 215 arrests. For closing down student newspapers, the number is 64. The...[Inaudible--Editor]...committee expelled is 13, but the count for the security committee is 563.

In the case of freedom for women, I have another section. There is discrimination against them. Tens of thousands of things have happened. The main issue is that they are forced to cover themselves in the way that the government wants them to be covered. We don't have any exact information regarding these issues. I therefore don't have the statistics for that. In most cases, they will be sent to prison and kept for a short time.

For all the women activists who have been active on different social issues and non-governmental organizations of women who are very active in respect to equality and freedom, there are organizations. Among the leaders of these groups, 25 of them have been called or summoned, 40 of them have been tried and found guilty, and 40 people have been arrested, sent to court, and now have court cases.

Let's now go to labour. Due to the economic crisis, many labourers in Iran have lost their jobs. Unfortunately, due to the limitation of time, I don't want to go into the details, but I'd like to give you the statistics in that regard. More than 11,000 people have been fired. There are 26 cases of heads of unions who have been tried and condemned, 38 have been called to court or summoned and have had court cases, and 84 people have been arrested for a short time.

Let's now go to religious minorities. In this case, this is unfortunately the lowest because there is so much discrimination against them. They are mostly Bahá'ís and Christians. Let me again go to statistics rather than descriptions.

Among the Bahá'ís, 42 people have been arrested in the past year. There have been 31 cases of attacks and assaults to their homes. Twenty-five Bahá'í families have been summoned and called to court, and 11 cases have had a verdict of execution.

Fifty-one Christians have been arrested.

Among the Muslims, there are, as you know, two major groups: Sunnis and Shiites. One hundred and thirty-nine Sunnis have been arrested.

The other case is about the darvesh. I don't know whether you are familiar with this or not. Darvesh refers to the Sufis. One hundred and three Sufis have been arrested, and 19 of them have been tried and have received an execution verdict.

In the last part, I'd like to say a few words about execution and capital punishment in Iran. Amnesty International has mentioned 346 cases of execution, but our number is a little bit lower than that. Based on our investigation, we have 278 cases. There are 30 cases of execution for people under 18 years. There are eight cases of people who are in prison waiting for execution. Obviously the number might be greater than this, but this is what we could investigate, and my presentation is based on that.

I appreciate that you have listened to my argument, and if you want something in writing, I can provide it to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much to both our witnesses.

We have sufficient time to do two rounds of questions, which is not always possible in this committee. What I'm going to suggest we do is start with our normal seven-minute rounds. We can be a little bit flexible if need be because of translation issues. Then hopefully we'll be able to have seven-minute questions in the second round as well, allowing everybody to get full time with our witnesses.

We traditionally begin with the Liberals. Mr. Silva, please.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me begin by thanking both our witnesses for their excellent presentation. We on this committee for human rights are very much concerned about the situation that's taking place in Iran.

Before I ask the question, I would like to make a few remarks. We have heard over and over again, both from different human rights organizations and from people in the diasporas of Iran, who have complained about the enormous human rights atrocities, such as arresting and detaining journalists, union activists, and students; depriving people of their language and their education; and persecuting religious minorities from the Bahá'í or Christian faiths. We have also heard over and over again the rhetoric and seen the actions of a very genocidal government that wants to destroy the Jewish people throughout the world and the state of Israel. These are alarming concerns to us here in Canada, which require the international community to focus its attention on what to do about the situation in Iran.

We also know about the persecution of linguistic minorities. We talked about the Azerbaijani community that came forward, and we're very much concerned about them. We also know that the Balochi community as well has been persecuted, not just in Iran but also in Pakistan. I know the Balochi community in Pakistan is also under persecution and also does not have access to their linguistic rights and cultural rights that should be accorded to all people.

We are very concerned, and we very much would like to ask the questions arising from this testimony on the various cases of arrest and detention of union leaders and journalists. We had, of course, our own Canadian journalist who was murdered in Iran. Minors have been executed for reasons including their sexual orientation. Two young people were executed in Iran. We also know that gays and lesbians are persecuted on a regular basis in Iran.

Given that, I want to hear what both of you think are some concrete things we as a committee could do to advance these human rights issues so that we can in fact get the international audience to listen about the atrocities that are taking place in that country. We need to have a clear focus and perspective that we as a community are not just closing our eyes. We see that there are gross violations of human rights, and we have to act, but we also need your support, and we thank you very much for the work you are already doing on human rights.

Mr. Chair, to speed things up, maybe we can hear from Fakhteh first, and then while the translator speaks to Ahmad, he could answer the second part, if that makes it easier.

[Fakhteh Zamani]

Yes, thank you very much. Having this hearing is a first step toward bringing attention to the issues of minorities, especially ethnic minorities, whom I try to concentrate on.

You mentioned that this was already a positive step forward. In addition to that, we would like to have more chances to bring the issues of minorities to the attention of other members of Parliament. As you might have known, ethnic minorities especially are totally dismissed, as I mentioned in my speech, because they are a very sensitive issue both to the government and the opposition groups outside the country. As I testified to the U.S. Congress, I was not attacked by members of the Iranian government but by members of the opposition groups outside Iran, whom the police were called to remove.

You mentioned the Balochi cases. I tried to work with a couple of Balochi cases after hearing very alarming reports from Balochi human rights groups. One human rights activist was executed last year, and his brother was sentenced to five years' of imprisonment. I've been invited to go to the European Parliament to speak about the Balochi community. They have invited me to talk generally about everybody's cases, but unfortunately, because of lack of resources, we focus on the Azerbaijanis.

What I have heard from Balochis is that there is a special judge appointed by the government to try these cases. Confessions have been obtained under severe torture, and these people are tried in 10 to 15 minutes in their cells, without a prosecutor or a defence lawyer present. Just because of the special Balochi situation, a judge shows up and asks a few questions of this tortured individual and sentences them to death. There are hundreds of Balochis on death row.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, because of almost a century of discrimination, ethnic minorities are not able to organize within the country, and they also have a hard time getting resources outside the country.

I have heard hundreds of cases of Balochis that are not known to the international community. The human rights groups in Tehran bring cases from the central areas to international attention, which is wonderful, but unfortunately we don't hear that much about ethnic groups like Balochis and Azerbaijanis.

Our first goal is to bring awareness. That is because at this point we feel there is not enough awareness. The more meetings and hearings we can have that go toward achieving a resolution, the better the chances for ethnic minorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Batebi, did you have a response as well?

[Ahmad Batebi]

First, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity.

Second, I would like to say that any activity with respect to human rights will have an effect on the situation in Iran. Iran usually reacts to any action outside Iran with respect to human rights issues. While I was in prison, I noticed this fact, that whenever there was action by some groups outside Iran with respect to human rights, then the pressure toward me by the guards in the prison was much less through the duration of this external action.

There are three issues I would like to mention that I believe may have an influence on the situation in Iran. One is the international conferences with respect to international human rights and the invitation of people from Iran so they can express their views. That will have a major effect. Also, the other thing is the expression of concern by committees to the United Nations in respect of issues of human rights violations. Also, of course, somehow provide support to those Iranians who are activists on social or other issues in respect of human rights.

I am very thankful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have the floor, Mr. Bigras.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, welcome to the subcommittee. Your presence here is special, particularly considering that the Iranian Constitution supposedly guarantees certain rights, notably language and cultural rights. Not only are you waging your own battle, you are also fighting on behalf of all minorities, whether it be for the Kurds, the Baloutches or the Arabs. Your battle is a battle waged by all ethnic minorities that believe basic rights such as the right to one's own culture, education and language must be upheld.

You used the word “assimilation“ in your presentation, but so far, I haven't heard you use the word “genocide“. Yet, some claim that there have been signs of this in some provinces. I read the following headline somewhere: “Genocide of Azerbaijanis in Khodjali“.

In your opinion, would you qualify what is happening today in certain provinces as a genocide?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Madam Zamani, please.

[Fakhteh Zamani]

Can you repeat the name?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Khojaly.

[Fakhteh Zamani]

Khojaly, yes.

There is the Republic of Azerbaijan, with eight million Azerbaijanis living there. It's to the north of Iran. I have handed out a map. But the majority of other Azerbaijanis live within Iran. The Khojaly genocide you mentioned happened in Karabakh, in the country of Azerbaijan.

On cultural genocide, yes, you are right. What has happened in Iran is cultural genocide.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

What can you tell us about the International Moral Court? I believe it was created in 2002. Commonly called the Paris Tribunal, the Court was the product of the Committee to Pursue the International Crimes of the Islamic Republic. In your opinion, has this tribunal produced some positive results to date?

[Fakhteh Zamani]

My constitution is on the human rights issues within Iran. I have heard about Khojaly. It's an issue outside Iran, and this conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis is happening in the country of Azerbaijan.

This brings me back to our main issue. There's still confusion between the Azerbaijani country and Iranian Azerbaijanis. What you are mentioning happened in the Karabakh, which is a region in the country of Azerbaijan.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Unless I'm mistaken, the International Moral Tribunal is investigating the Iranian regime. Correct?