Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and honourable members. It is a privilege to be here.
As you may know from my background, I was an elected member of the Iranian Parliament from 2000 until 2004, and I was the youngest woman in the Parliament.
Today l would like to discuss Iran's election processes, which, as l will demonstrate, violate principles of free and fair elections. As elected members, you all know that conducting free, fair, and transparent elections is essential for true representation of a country's population to govern themselves and translate their will into action. Lack of free, fair, and transparent elections is the root cause of all other problems with which this committee is concerned, since it systematically denies office to all Iranians, who cannot impact policies properly.
Iran is a signatory to many international documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Declaration on Criteria for Free and Fair Elections. However, elections have systematically been manipulated by the state agencies. These include the Supreme Leader and his office; the 12-member Guardian Council, which functions as the only election oversight body; the election administration, run by the interior ministry; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC; and the intelligence ministry, to name a few.
The manipulation of electoral processes can be divided into three main types, which l will briefly describe: first, the legalization of discrimination against certain groups and individuals to prevent them from standing for any election sanctioned by the Iranian election laws; second, barring a majority of candidates, including opposition members, from contesting; and third, committing systematic electoral fraud whenever needed.
The law pertaining to the Assembly of Experts bars individuals who have not completed seminary school and gained permission to issue fatwas, or religious edicts, known as mujtahid. This means that the general population and majority of elites are barred from participating in this key institution that selects the Supreme Leader. The presidential election law discriminates against non-Shia Muslims, non-Muslims, and women.
Parliamentary election laws and city and village council election laws discriminate against many categories of individuals, including those who are non-practising Muslims and not loyal to the Supreme Leader of Iran, those who worked with the previous regime, and those convicted of religious crimes.
The second category, barring candidates, has been systematically exercised in Iran through the approbatory supervision of the Guardian Council, called nezarate esteswabi, which includes three important stages. The GC is the ultimate decision-making body regarding the credentials of candidates to stand for office.
In December 2003, by order of the Supreme Leader, the GC decided to base approval of candidates for any election on the proven qualification of candidates, called ehraz salahiyat, which is contrary to the constitution and the concept of free and fair elections, and deprives citizens of the right to compete in elections. Just as an example, for the parliamentary election, the GC disqualified 49% of candidates, 3,379 out of 6,000, in 2004.
I have many examples, but I will just skip this part.
In recent years, the GC has expanded its control over county executive boards by disqualifying nominated trustees until a desired board is formed.
The next stage, which is very important, is invalidating and halting elections. The Guardian Council has invalidated, partially or totally, outcomes of many districts in previous elections without being accountable before law. There are no independent international or domestic election observers allowed in Iran, and the results from each polling station are not publicly accessible. Even candidates and representatives are not entitled to a copy of polling station minutes, and the compilation of final results takes place behind closed doors, without the presence of independent supervision. As a result, it is not clear whether invalidations happen due to massive fraudulent activities.
Presumably, the GC has nullified outcomes of elections in particular districts to give seats to desired candidates. For instance, in 2000, when I was elected as a member of Parliament, 700,000 votes of Tehran were nullified in order to give a seat to Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, who is the father-in-law of the son of the Supreme Leader and who later became the speaker of the Parliament in the following parliamentary election.
The third category is systematic electoral fraud whenever needed. In the last decade, a political phenomenon has been identified by political activists, called "engineering elections". Even though the Iranian constitution and election laws have forbidden interference of military personnel in politics, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has for a decade played an important role in engineering elections.
Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, a former deputy of IRGC, revealed that the IRGC had "a complex and multi-layered design to ensure the victory of the conservative forces". Ali Motahari, a current member of Parliament, stated in his parliamentary address that the IRGC has interfered in many districts and supported their desired candidates. Many candidates who won and who lost have affirmed this.
In the absence of independent media and free political parties and assemblies, the state propaganda apparatus, including the national TV and radio as well as the offices of Friday prayer imams and mosques, are used to shape the public opinion in favour of the regime's desired candidates. Last, but not least, is the role of Komite Emdad Imam Khomeini, a state-run organization to support the poor, which has played a role in buying votes by distributing goods to the poor.
What can be done? These systematic interventions demonstrate that elections are not free, fair, and transparent in Iran. This process has a more negative and unbalanced impact on women in particular.
Therefore, the international community should employ nonviolent measures to pressure Iran to meet her international obligations under the UDHR, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other international treaties.
The second cycle of the Human Rights Council universal periodic review for Iran is scheduled for October 2014. Addressing systematic violations of free, fair, and transparent elections in Iran must be part of the second review, and Canada has an important role to play.
Canada has been consistent in its approach to human rights. Thanks to all of you, Canada can engage other countries to create pressure for free and fair elections in Iran, at least competitive ones. I believe free and fair elections will change the leadership of the country in the long run. If this pressure is built now and continues over the next two years, Iran's government may accommodate some of the demands of the international community for free, fair, and transparent elections for the 2016 parliamentary election.
In closing, the international community should ask Iran to: one, respect the rights of all citizens to be elected at periodic, genuinely democratic elections by amending electoral laws to be inclusive, match international standards and base practices, and recognize independent, non-partisan civil society organizations; two, observe the transparency of the whole process of elections including candidate qualifications, the publication of outcomes for each polling station, and the tabulation of votes; three, allow credible and independent international and domestic election observers to monitor elections, especially for the 2016 parliamentary election; four, respect freedom of assembly for political parties and civil society organizations; five, recognize freedom of media without fear of illegal prosecution; six, encourage more women to stand for and gain access to office, given their important role in society, their percentage of population, and their interest in addressing broader issues that are of dire concern in Iran today; and seven, seek UN technical assistance on elections in order to strengthen electoral processes and to enable international observation to validate the integrity of electoral processes and to assure relatively high standards for free and fair elections in Iran.
I look forward to answering questions on the 2016 parliamentary election, women's political participation, or anything with which you are concerned.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.