I urge you to recognize that, just as Canada led the way in convincing our allies around the world to cut ties with the apartheid regime in South Africa, we must lead other democracies in isolating Iran’s regime. This means listing the IRGC. This means telling our allies that diplomatic agreements with this regime, like the JCPOA, are a betrayal of Iran’s women.
We should open our doors to large numbers of Iranian activists, many of them women’s rights activists, who are currently languishing in Iran or in nearby countries like Turkey and Iraq. We should, in turn, close our doors to officials and affiliates of the regime who wish to bring their funds and families here.
In 1998, Nelson Mandela spoke to our House of Commons and expressed his gratitude to this country, saying, “thank you...for helping us end our oppression”. We deserved that gratitude then for having stood up against the racial apartheid in South Africa. We should earn similar gratitude again for standing up against gender apartheid in Iran.
Thank you very much.