Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on June 15th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

We're moving into our second round of questions, and we're going to begin with the Liberals.

MP John McKay will be up next, for five minutes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'm not quite sure who I should direct this question to, but it's long puzzled me as to what benefit the Iranian government gets from shooting down a passenger jet.

Can you take me through the thinking of this regime and what possible benefit they could have obtained by virtue of this immense tragedy?

[Shahram Golestaneh]

I believe that's for me, so I'll take it quickly.

I'm not too sure, John, whether you have seen the investigative report by a Canadian investigator, Andre Milne, regarding this tragedy, and the technical issues that led him to believe.... He investigated this tragedy from day one.

With regard to your specific question, he actually argued.... This is not concrete, I would say, evidence. This is analysis, per se. They tried to use a human shield in order to avoid further intensification of the conflict with the U.S. In the aftermath of the U.S. drone killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, instead of closing down the Iranian air space and declaring it dangerous for passenger flights, they allowed this to happen.

It's a public report published in Vancouver, in a weekly. I can send the report to the subcommittee for distribution. Mr. Milne has also given it to Ukrainian and Canadian authorities. He felt it was a deliberate Iranian action. That's why the Iranians asked every single passenger whether they had U.S. citizenship. There were a couple of passengers who had U.S. citizenship, but they were not on board. They were denied. The Iranians wanted to use this passenger airline as a human shield in order to prove.... In the beginning, they did not admit they did it. They said it was an accident, and it was due to U.S. hostilities, so they wanted to use it as a shield to protect themselves.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I must admit I find that logic bizarre, and almost incomprehensible: to yank U.S. passengers off a flight in order to shoot down non-U.S. passengers and create a human shield. I don't quite get the thinking there, but since I have only a couple of minutes, I thought I'd mention that, because it has puzzled me for quite a while.

Go ahead, Mr. Golestaneh.

[Shahram Golestaneh]

I'll elaborate on that. Let me provide you a couple of other examples, because this is not the only one. It's unfortunate, and I'm not talking about general terrorism. I'm talking about specific action, like when Iran bombed the Iraqi Shia Imam tombs. They were doing things that a normal person would hesitate to even contemplate. How could they do this?

They placed a bomb in Mashhad. This was revealed afterwards, that it was not by any opposition group or anything like that. Within their internal in-fighting, it became clear that this was done by elements of the government in order to take advantage of others. This was not the first time. They killed Christian priests, and they blamed it on the opposition. There are many things that cannot be easily explained to a non-suspecting witness from outside Iran's walls. I totally agree with you.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I thank you for that.

Let me ask one last question. The diaspora community here seems to be not only very fractured; elements of it are quite devious, and contrary to Canadian interests. In the pathetic little amount of time that the chair has allocated to me, could you give me, in 30 seconds, who and how the diaspora community is threatening the security of Canada?

[Shahram Golestaneh]

That's almost impossible to do in 30 seconds, as you said.

It's not only the Iranian diaspora that is fractured, as you say. As Ms. Boorchi said, we have to listen to the Iranian people inside the country. I guess the Iranian diaspora is just a cut of the society in Iran. Of course, that's what democracy is about. That's why we have to listen to various voices. The threat the Iranian diaspora is facing from the Iranian regime is more than a physical threat, I would say. It's influential.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

My clock rolled over by about a minute there, John, but it's done that for all the members. They can be well assured that they've also had a slow-running clock.

Next up is MP Scott Reid for five minutes...or so.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Or so. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I personally think you're very fair to all of us, based on our experience.

I want to ask a question about the issue raised with regard to the expatriate community being fragmented. Iran itself is a remarkably diverse, heterogeneous country. There are multiple languages. There are some very large linguistic minorities—the Azeris and the Baluchis—and there are some other distinctions.

To what degree is the Canadian diaspora community a reflection of that? Or is it primarily just one group from within that mixture?

[Simin Boorchi]

Yes, there are different fractures, different ethnicities, in Iran, but they all call themselves Iranian. If it's something for Iran, everybody says they will give their life for Iran. The Baluchis say it. The Christians say it. The Muslims say it. The Kurds say it. The Turks say it. Yes, we have different languages and different religions, but we all gather around one pole, which is Iran.

Yes, in opposition there are different fractures too. I may be from the north; Mr. Golestaneh may be from the west, and there are other people, but we all consider ourselves Iranian. We know that our motherland needs help. We want to be the voice of our motherland. They destroyed our country. It was a fertile land. It is now deserted. People are living in destitution and being put away. There are tens of thousands of people just sitting in jail for questioning their government. This is not acceptable.

Living in Canada, I can talk to you so freely and express myself. Why in my country can I not do that? We have 3,000 years of history. There are some religious people who are not religious. They are fascists. They don't have any education. When I go and talk to priests here, they say they are studying law, philosophy, and this and that, but these people are not doing that. That's why we want a change and people like that don't want a change.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Ms. Boorchi, since you have the floor right now, maybe I can ask you my next question.

You and one of the other witnesses made reference, right in your first presentation, to the term “religious fascist” regime. You're free to fill in what your meaning is there, but I want to ask this question: To what degree is the religious element used as window dressing or as a way of legitimizing what the regime does? To what degree are they sincere about their religious fervour?

[Simin Boorchi]

Yes. Whatever they interpret about Islam, it's not that.

Do you see this picture? I hope everyone sees it. This girl, 13 years old, was arrested. They said—they made this up—that if the girl was a virgin when they executed her, she would go to heaven. They don't want these people to go to heaven, because they stand up in front of them and are against them, so they raped this girl in order for her not to go to heaven. They want to play God. For me as a Muslim, it's not people who judge me. It's God who judges my actions. For them, because they want to teach other people who is the boss, they are even doing this—being judges who execute their own kids.

Take everything they say about the hijab, for example. The hijab is mandatory. Everybody has to have one. If you're Christian, you're Muslim, you're Jewish or whatever, if you come out of the house, you have to have it. At the beginning, they were throwing acid in the faces of people. It happened in Isfahan. If you look on the Internet, you can see that there have been seven or eight cases. Today the imam says it at Friday prayers, and the next day seven people have acid thrown in their face.

That's why I'm saying it's religious fascism. They are not religious people.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

[Kamran Saghah]

Can I add something?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Yes, please do.

[Kamran Saghah]

In fact, it's very hard for western people to understand what kind of government it is when we say “religious fascist government”. In fact, there is something in their brains and they interpret this as Islam, but if you study Islam, it's not really Islam. It's against Islam or against Christianity or against Jews. Whatever is in their brain, they interpret accordingly. What they do is unbelievable. You have to study a lot, and then you notice what kind of government you're dealing with. Then you know what to do with these people.

Our resistance has studied a lot, and they know them. That's why they made a 10-point plan, which is the best solution for the future of Iran. For sure, we're going to face something big happening in Iran very soon.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Reid, for another longish five minutes that we had.

I will move to MP Brunelle-Duceppe, for five minutes...ish.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Golestaneh, you talked about Iran's influence, but I would like to know about Iran's influence in Canada. Are there any views from the Iranian community? Are there any Iranian operations in Canada, and if there are, what forms do they take and how are they conducted? Can you shed some light on this?

[Shahram Golestaneh]

Of course.

There are actually a lot of influencing operations by the Iranian regime in Canada. Fortunately, there is so much evidence of it. Indeed, we produced an interview of when the Iranian embassy was here. The third counsellor, or the cultural counsellor, of the embassy gave an interview in Iran and said that they have to infiltrate Canadian institutions and political institutions via the next generations of Iranians in Canada. That was part of the reason for the closure of the embassy, among other things. All I am saying is that this was published and well publicized.

Besides that, there was an article in the Toronto Sun a few years ago. The head of a Canadian think tank was offered $80,000 to produce a report against the Iranian main opposition, calling them cults or terrorists and things like that. He refused. We don't know how many people did not refuse.

Coming to the present day again, a few weeks ago I read articles on the Global News website and in the National Post about the Iranian and Hezbollah influence operations using Vancouver casinos to do money laundering. A couple of years ago, there was another operation by the Ontario Provincial Police, who actually captured five Iranians involved in money laundering for political purposes.

There are many cases like that. We wish.... That's another reason that I believe this committee has to reconvene—hopefully, in the fall—to do a more detailed analysis of many aspects of the Iranian regime's operations in Canada. We would be more than happy to provide all of this evidence, most of it by Canadian researchers or law enforcement authorities, actually, including the RCMP, the OPP, the Vancouver police and things like that, on some of the Chinese gangs, based on the latest reports of money laundering and influencing Canadian universities and political institutions. That can also be easily followed up on.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

You tell us that here, on Canadian territory, the Iranian government is currently engaged in large‑scale money laundering. Did I understand you correctly?

[Shahram Golestaneh]

Absolutely.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

So, what has the West missed in relation to Iran? Why hasn't it been possible to make a significant change in Iran?

[Shahram Golestaneh]

That was a big miss.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay.

[Shahram Golestaneh]

Okay, I believe the big miss was the whole notion that, unfortunately, has taken over our political system, generally speaking. I think, within the Iranian regime, we can count on some so-called moderate elements. That, unfortunately, has proven to be counterproductive and futile.

It goes back to many examples. However, again, to give it a Canadian context, it goes back to the case of Zahra Kazemi, the Montreal photojournalist who was arrested, raped, tortured and killed in Iran just for taking pictures in front of Evin prison of the families of political prisoners. Now, in the aftermath of that, unfortunately what happened was that the Canadian government's response was very weak, and we did not follow through on our own promises.

I remember having a conversation with one of the released political prisoners at the time, who said that, right after the ordeal, the prison officials basically gathered all the political prisoners and said, “Look, we killed a Canadian citizen. Now Canada is apologizing. Who do you think you are? We can kill you all and no one would care.”

This is not the message that we should send to the Iranian people. We should send a message to the Iranian people that we support their legitimate right to self-determination and to choose their own future, and we support their resistance.