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

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

Can you give us your recommendations quickly? What should the Canadian government do in the short term?

[Shahram Golestaneh]

In the short term and to be very practical, I believe that the House of Commons should pass the resolution. The families of the Ukrainian flight want it. The Iranian community wants it, and the Iranian people from within Iran call for it: the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist entity that has its hands bloodied all over the world: in Canada with this flight, and in many other places. That's one thing we can do, and then we can follow up on that promise.

There are many other policy options for being firm and supporting the Iranian opposition. This is not feasible, I would say, by any sitting government—to support one group versus another. I'm not talking about groups. I'm talking about ideas that support democracy, the way that we dealt with apartheid in South Africa. This is not far-fetched. Iran, today, is way worse than apartheid in South Africa.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Golestaneh.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Now we'll move to MP McPherson for five minutes-ish.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, again, to our witnesses.

I'm very interested.... I have the role in this committee of asking the last questions, and I'm very interested in that line of questioning that we were just exploring: the idea of what Canada can do. What are the practical things, in both the short and the long term, that you would like to see Canada do to help the people of Iran and to support a free Iranian people?

Maybe what I would do is perhaps start with Mr. Saghah, and then we'll just pass it through each of you for your final words on those things, those concrete steps, that you would like Canada to take in the short and long term, please.

[Kamran Saghah]

I believe that, like the congressmen and congresswomen in the U.S.A., we can support the 10-point plan. This is a very big step towards freedom and democracy. Support the Iranian people by recognizing them, or at least support the 10-point plan, which is really the most advanced idea. It covers everything for the future Iran.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Ms. Boorchi.

[Simin Boorchi]

Designating.... We all—all Iranians and even the countries around us that hurt from the IRGC.... The biggest and most important thing is to put the IRGC on the terrorist list, because when they are on that, their activity can be shortened. The money laundering that they do, they cannot do. The pressure they can put on people is going to be less. The rest of the people of Iran know what to do.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Before I go to Mr. Golestaneh, Ms. Boorchi, could you tell me...? We talked earlier today about Iran's having a seat on the UN status of women commission. We talked about the needs for women. I'm wondering if you could also just touch upon how Canada can support Iranian women.

The reason I ask that is that we have a feminist international assistance policy. We are developing a feminist foreign policy. I think it's very important that this perspective becomes part of our study.

[Simin Boorchi]

As an Iranian woman, I always look up to Mrs. Rajavi. For almost 40 years, she has been the front-runner of freedom for women and has been speaking for women's rights in Iran. You can study their policies, talk to her. You can talk to the other Iranian groups that may be active.

We don't want anything out of the ordinary. Anything Canadians accept for themselves should be acceptable for us too, as Iranian women. When they are going to do communications and going for economic consultations, they should remember to always, always put human rights first.

Human rights abuses in Iran are enormous, in every walk of life. It doesn't matter whether they are educated, not educated, women, men, old or young; they all suffer from it. We want this to be....

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Acknowledged.

[Simin Boorchi]

Yes, acknowledged.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

I have just a few more seconds, but I would give the final word, if I could, to Mr. Golestaneh, to finish off the meeting.

[Shahram Golestaneh]

Sure. Thank you, Ms. McPherson.

On the policy recommendation of what Canada can do, or basically even what MPs—or every individual or every one of you—can do, it's taking a firm stance on Iran. Designating the IRGC is one.

Second, we have a tool here in Canada called the Magnitsky sanctions. There are many human rights organizations. I only quoted one, from Mr. Cotler, but there are many.

Even the European Union, which has so many relations with Iran, has 89 individuals on its list of human rights sanctions. In Canada, we still don't have a single individual Iranian official on the Magnitsky sanctions, and I am wondering why. We have people from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and many other countries, but not from Iran. This is troubling to the people of Iran. They say that this is complicity.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP McPherson.

We actually are going into a third round. We have just about eight minutes—a maximum of 10 minutes.

I'm asking members to keep everything down to about one and a half minutes to two minutes, to allow our witnesses to maybe conclude or make some closing remarks through their answers to your questions.

We will start with MP Zuberi.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I'd like to thank everybody for being here and their courage in speaking to us.

We all fully appreciate how challenging this is for you and your families. We support and respect what you're doing, fully. Thank you.

We were on the topic of sanctions. For the record, to my understanding, Canada currently sanctions 41 Iranian individuals and 161 entities under the Special Economic Measures Act. That sanctions 12 individuals and 10 entities. I'm not saying that this is sufficient in terms of curtailing human rights abuses from Iran.

I'd like to give a moment to Ms. Boorchi, please.

Your introduction says that you were a political prisoner. If you're comfortable sharing with us, I'd like to give you the floor.

[Simin Boorchi]

Sure. My name is Simin, as you know. I am a former political prisoner. I live in Brantford, Ontario. I am a nurse. I want to share my ordeal in the hands of the Iranian regime and the IRGC.

I was just 19. In the middle of the night, eight men climbed the wall of my house, found their way to my bedroom, put a gun to my head and told me, “Don't move.” One of them told me to get dressed and go with him. My brother was one year younger than me. He said, “Where are you taking my sister?” They said, “Oh, do you want to come?” He said yes. Then they blindfolded both of us, threw us in the back of a car and drove us away in front of my parents.

On that night, I stepped into an unknown world, a world that I could not believe existed. For a year and a half, I was witnessing the agony and the torture that the prison authority inflicted on the people under their care. It was unimaginable and horrific: physical, emotional, psychological torture 24-7, such as lashing to the point that you'd lose the soles of your feet or sometimes a finger; hanging you from the ceiling; electric shock; being deprived of sleep, food and washrooms; and humiliation.

Then there's one that is special for us as women—as a young girl who was not married—torture before execution. Nasrin Shojaee was one of them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you for your courage.

Thank you, MP Zuberi.

Now we will move to MP Chiu, for about two and a half minutes.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Chair, I have discussed this with MP Scott Reid. I will be using his time as well, so for the next five minutes I would like the witnesses to comment on—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

No, it's two and a half minutes in total for your party. Then we'll go to the Bloc, and then to MP McPherson.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Fair enough.

By the way, thank you for doing a great job.

I would like Mr. Golestaneh, perhaps, to comment on a news report of several months ago that China has signed a $400-billion U.S., multiple-decade deal with Iran for oil, gas, tech and weapons. What kinds of implications does this have? We know that sanctions may work, but it seems to us Canadians that it's a way out of the sanctions. Can you comment on that, please?

[Shahram Golestaneh]

Yes, absolutely. This was devastating, but not unusual. I guess good people find good people and bad people find bad people. I guess that's a common theme, and this is happening, of course, with Iran hanging out with China, and previously even on an arms deal with North Korea. Many of the Iranian IRGC missiles are built upon North Korean No Dong 2 missiles, with lots of expertise [Technical difficulty—Editor]

On China, this is a 25-year deal, as you mentioned, worth a lot of money, but more than anything else—to me; this is my analysis, although of course the news reports are accurate—the analysis perspective is that Iran wanted to use that as leverage in its talks with the west and the U.S., to say, “If you don't relieve the sanctions, we have other backers: We can rely on China and we can rely on other countries.” That's why we have to convince even those countries that they are dictatorial.... As I said—if I can have 30 seconds—even within Canada, based on the report of our RCMP officer charged with this task, there were money-laundering operations that were done with Chinese help.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you.

With the remaining 10 seconds, I want to thank all of you again for your courage and for being here and telling us your stories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.