Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for your attention on the deplorable human rights situation in my homeland, Iran.
In the last two years, Iran has faced an unprecedented political upheaval, quelled only after hundreds of protesters were killed, tens of thousands arrested and at least eight executed. These “Woman Life Freedom” protests were yet another reminder that the Islamic Republic is incapable of reform. Instead, it stays in power using a three-pronged survival strategy: repress, deflect and divide.
Repression is at the core of this strategy. The catalogue of abuses by the regime in Iran and around the world is well documented. The Islamic Republic holds the appalling record of having the highest per capita execution rate in the world and ranks 177th out of 180 countries on the world press freedom index.
As we've already heard, domestic repression includes censorship, blinding, rape, torture and arbitrary detention. Ethnic, religious and sexual minorities face systematic persecution and discrimination.
It's a gender apartheid state that is waging a war on women and girls; despite the country's economic desperation, its parliament has allocated $2.9 billion to a government institution responsible for intensified hijab enforcement.
As we already heard from Mr. Sobhani, my fellow artists are also heavily targeted, including dissident rap artist Toomaj Salehi, who faces execution. After recently fleeing the country under treacherous conditions to avoid imprisonment, as Ms. Daemi also testified having to do, renowned filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof issued a defiant message to the regime: “If geographical Iran suffers beneath the boots of your...tyranny, cultural Iran is alive in the [collective] mind of millions of Iranians who were forced to leave Iran” because of oppression and barbarity.
That barbarity, sadly, extends beyond Iran's borders. Human rights abuses are among the regime's primary exports, including assassination plots, abductions and the hostage-taking of dual and foreign nationals. It arms and finances violent militias throughout the Middle East, has enabled Russia's war against Ukraine and abets the world's most disreputable regimes, from Damascus to Caracas.
To avoid accountability for its abuses, the regime has mastered the practice of deflection. Canadians are painfully aware of the Islamic Republic's attempts to smother the truth and evade accountability following the IRGC's downing of Flight PS752, which killed 176 people.
Despite official denials and stonewalling, the UN fact-finding mission on Iran concluded that the Islamic Republic was responsible for the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in September 2022, and for crimes against humanity in the ensuing protests. One of those crimes was the murder of 16-year-old protester Nika Shakarami, who authorities claimed had killed herself. Leaked documents revealed she was sexually assaulted and killed by three men in the security forces.
The regime attempts to neuter UN bodies and lobby democratic governments to advance its hateful ideology.
Finally, the Islamic Republic consolidates power to foment divisions. To prevent any unified opposition, it relentlessly sows discord and promotes fear and mistrust among Iranian groups and dissidents worldwide. Their notorious cyber-army smears the regime's opponents to ensure no group or individual becomes powerful enough to challenge the status quo. The Islamic Republic's strategic partnership with other anti-American dictatorships aims to divide western alliances. It exploits political differences, anti-imperialist views and historical grievances to weaken global unity, maintaining enough support or neutrality to prevent a coordinated response to its actions. They attempt to exploit your democratic processes, institutions and media, covertly influencing your decisions, events and elections to suit their malign agenda and whitewash their crimes.
The antidotes to repression, deflection and division are resolve, accountability and unity.
What can Canada do? I'd like to offer three brief prescriptions.
First, to echo my fellow witnesses, Canada should immediately implement the motion to brand the IRGC a terrorist organization and expel Islamic Republic agents. In fact, rather than simply deporting them, I echo Ms. Afshin-Jam in encouraging you to exercise universal jurisdiction to prosecute those who have perpetrated atrocity crimes. You can also open structural investigations into systematic human rights abuses by the regime, which don't require the physical presence of perpetrators.
Second, you can support Iranian civil society by establishing a dedicated immigration stream to annually provide refuge to at least 200 Iranians fleeing the regime's persecution—people like Shilan Mirzaee, who faces deportation from Turkey back to Iran.
Finally, under Canada's feminist foreign policy, I urge you to support the inclusion of gender apartheid in the crimes against humanity draft treaty to hold accountable perpetrators of severe systemic gender-based segregation and discrimination.
We cannot change the character of the Islamic Republic, but we must resolve to counter it. While autocracies are often united in their domestic and global objectives, democracies are often not, which is why I urge a unified international response to increase the political cost to the Islamic Republic of its oppression and aggression and tip the balance of power in favour of Iranian freedom seekers.
In closing, I want to take a moment to address my fellow pro-democracy Iranians across the world: As long as this regime is united and we are divided, they will remain in power. However, in the words of our beloved Toomaj,“If you and I become we, we're unlimited.”
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
