Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 9th, 2017

[Irwin Cotler]

Canada, to its credit, has been the leader in co-sponsoring the annual resolution at the UN General Assembly on the situation of human rights in Iran. Your references also come out of that resolution, which we co-sponsored. As well, there is a country review of human rights violations, and we have made specific recommendations in that regard, including specific recommendations with regard to the pain and plight of the Bahá'í, which have gone unaddressed and unresolved. That is why I say that you have a situation where Canada, to its credit, makes appropriate, effective, and specific recommendations with regard to improving the human rights situation in Iran and countering the human rights violations in Iran, and Iran responds to that by increasing its human rights violations amidst a culture of impunity.

The time has come for us to begin to sanction those major human rights violators to end that culture of impunity and to say, “Look, we want to engage with Iran, but that engagement cannot be a one-way street where, if we make recommendations, the response is effectively to ignore the recommendations and in fact intensify the violations”. Our engagement is on behalf of the people of Iran, on behalf of the rule of law in Iran, on behalf of an independent judiciary, and on behalf of freely elected leadership in Iran, all of the things we have referenced here.

Again, I want to single out the pain and plight of the Bahá'ís as a litmus test for the situation of human rights in Iran.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you very much.

We have time for one last question.

MP Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank both of you for being here today. It's a pleasure to be able to learn from you.

In 2016, the Iranian government passed a bill. I believe it's called the political crimes act. It criminalizes what it calls lies and attempts to reform the state. I'm just wondering if that has been used against your community in the last year or so, or is the oppression so strong it doesn't really make any difference. Is this another tool they've been using against you?

[Corinne Box]

I'm not familiar with that. I can't respond.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

To Mr. Cotler, then, can you just tell us a little more about the culture of impunity. It seems to start at the top, but who does it affect the most? Is it the legal system, the criminal system, the police? Is it regional or national? Tell us a little more about that.

[Irwin Cotler]

Well, it's persistent and pervasive.

If you look at the report of the international campaign for human rights in Iran, now the Center for Human Rights in Iran, they identify nine major government ministries, three of which I've referenced. Those nine major government ministries are all under the authority of the President of Iran, but effectively under the authority of the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and are all engaged both in the human rights violations and the attending culture of impunity.

We have to address what is happening in Iran in the manner I referenced earlier. When we speak about Iran as well, we have to realize in our representations that they are in effect violating their own law in many of these matters. They are violating international treaties to which they are a co-state party with Canada. When they violate those treaties, they are violating bilateral obligations they have made to us.

When you look at the situation with regard to the Bahá'í, the prosecution and persecution of the Bahá'í leadership is a case study of the systematic character of Iranian injustice. What you have, on the 9th anniversary of the imprisonment of the senior leaders of the Bahá'í faith, is arbitrary, illegal, and prolonged detention; torture and ill-treatment in detention; false and trumped up charges, such as “spreading corruption on earth”, which is a capital crime; denial of the right to effective trial; denial of the right to see and rebut the prosecutorial indictment against them; and trial hearings that are devoid of any semblance of due process before a political judiciary.

That is why I say that the Bahá'ís' situation is a case study of widespread and systematic injustice, but with a particular injustice, whereby the very practice of their faith is being denied, their very right to an education is being denied, and where they endure a specific form of exclusion and indictment in Iranian society, marked by the fact that they are the most peaceful and law-abiding of groups.

I think to whatever extent we can address and redress the pain and plight of the Bahá'í and bring about the release of their leadership, we will be advancing the case and cause of justice and peace as a whole.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you very much.

I want to recognize both witnesses today for their testimony before this subcommittee.

In particular, Professor Cotler, I want to acknowledge the work you have done on this file, initiating Iran Accountability Week in this subcommittee a number of years ago, and your continued advocacy on behalf of the Iranian people and political prisoners. You have been a model and a mentor for many of us on this committee, with your work on Iran, keeping this front and centre within the Canadian Parliament, and now, of course, more broadly, with your work for the Wallenberg caucus.

I want to pass on that sincere appreciation, I'm sure from all members of this committee.

[Irwin Cotler]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have just one word of comment, if I may.

There is one part of Iran Accountability Week that I hope can be sustained. We had the Iranian political prisoner advocacy project, where members of Parliament took up the case and causes of political prisoners, made interventions in Parliament and the like on their behalf, and held appropriate press conferences. May I say that this has led, in certain instances, to the actual release of some political prisoners in Iran.

I am hoping that this Iran Accountability Week will again witness the taking up of the case and cause of political prisoners, and, as I say, particular support for the leadership of the Bahá'í as we approach the ninth anniversary of their imprisonment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you very much to you both.

The meeting is adjourned