Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee.
My name is Michael Mostyn, and I am the CEO of B'nai Brith Canada, a human rights organization that has been serving this country in both the Jewish and broader Canadian communities for 140 years.
As the holiday of Purim approaches, we are reminded of the Book of Esther and its recounting of a Persian king named Ahasuerus whose newly appointed chief minister, Haman, plots to kill not just Mordecai, a Jew who had found his disfavour, but the entire Jewish population. Haman surreptitiously obtains Ahasuerus' permission and state funds, and executes his plan. It is only thanks to the bravery of a Jewish heroine named Esther and her Uncle Mordecai that Haman's evil plot to destroy the Jewish people is stopped.
Just as in the times of Mordecai and Esther, a Persian leader has arisen, who has repeatedly called for the annihilation of the Jewish state and has activated the terrorist proxies of Iran to murder innocent Jews all around the globe in premeditated acts of terror.
The ayatollah, Iran's ultimate decision-maker and modern-day equivalent of Haman, is at the helm of the world's premier state sponsor of terror and a regime that has continuously violated even the most basic of human rights.
My colleagues David Matas and Yehuda Azoulay will now elaborate further on the historical and current anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism central to the regime of the mullahs of Iran.