Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I invite Mr. Zuberi to take the floor for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here and sharing with us in the committee, and also with all of those who are watching, what's happening in Iran. There are a lot of people who are learning about what's happening in Iran, and a lot of people who are as dialed in as you are, knowing what's happening and following it.

What advice would you give to those who are dialed in to effectively communicate with the Canadian population about what is happening on the ground? Do you have any advice? I feel there is somewhat of a disconnect between the average Canadian, even those who care about human rights, and those who know what's happening within Iran.

I'll open up the floor for responses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Would anyone like to answer?

[Kaveh Shahrooz]

I think that's an excellent question.

There are a couple of things I would like to communicate to average Canadians who care about human rights but maybe aren't following this story as closely.

First of all, I think it's important for them to know what Iranians are fighting for. Iran is, for all intents and purposes, an apartheid state, based on gender, based on religion and based on ethnicity. Its economy is in free fall. As I mentioned in my remarks, it cannot provide water. The very basics of life, it cannot provide to its people. I think Canadians should understand the level of desperation that Iranians feel, having lived under this regime for nearly 50 years. That's point number one that I would make.

The second thing I'd want to communicate to your average Canadian is a point that's been made a couple of times here on this panel. This is not simply an Iranian problem; this is also a Canadian problem. This is a problem where our former attorney general and minister of justice has to live with security because this regime is going to try to kill him. It is a problem when the IRGC shoots down a plane and kills many Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

The problem will not stay confined there. We have to deal with the regime there so that we can live safely here.

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

Thank you.

If others have points that haven't been mentioned yet, I'd like to open it up to them.

[Brandon Silver]

Sure. Thank you, MP Zuberi.

If I may, I'd be remiss not to mention the cases and causes of political prisoners. They are a looking glass into the wider mass domestic repression and the external aggression of Iran.

One particular case is that of Dr. Ahmad Reza Jalali, for whom the Raoul Wallenberg Centre serves as legal counsel. He is one of the longest-held political prisoners in Iran. He is also a hostage, a dual Swedish Iranian national who has been sentenced to execution simply for being a doctor, for helping people. That tells a human story that the statistics sometimes belie, and it requires global action and attention. Even with pariah states, when they know they're being scrutinized, that could have a life-saving effect for individuals like Dr. Jalali.

Again, it exemplifies the broader policy issues at play and the weaponization of the judiciary, of state violence enforced to arbitrarily detain foreign nationals and to target, as Nazanin shared in her testimony, doctors who are treating sick patients. They are criminalized. Lawyers who are serving as counsel to the innocent are jailed, and journalists who are simply reporting the news are harassed and murdered. It's important to shine a global spotlight on this and seek to redress it.

There was discussion of targeted Magnitsky sanctions earlier, and I would simply take the opportunity to reaffirm and reiterate the urgency of pursuing this. While Canada has commendably implemented extensive targeted sanctions, we have missed the foremost architect of all these crimes you've heard described today, and that is the Ayatollah. There is no valid argument against sanctioning a head of state. We've done so with Nicolás Maduro and Vladimir Putin. We should do so with the Ayatollah and with all those who are the architects of the ongoing repression in Iran, both to name and shame them and to ensure that, again, our Canadian sovereignty and standards are not being corrupted by the corrosive influence of their ill-gotten gains, where they may send their family members or even themselves invest or launder their money in Canada.

It would send a powerful statement of solidarity with the Iranian people.

I will just reiterate our recommendations: sanction the Ayatollah as the architect of repression, launch a structural investigation into crimes against humanity, and engage bilaterally and multilaterally with the U.K. and within the G7 to ensure that our allies proscribe and share intelligence and act against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard's war.

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

Thank you.

I'll just say that in the rest of the testimony I hope to hear more about what's happening with the prisoners and what we can do to support them, those who are imprisoned right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Zuberi.

Now I'd like to ask Ms. Kronis to take the floor for five minutes.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Now that I have a bit more of an opportunity, first of all I want to thank you all for sharing your experiences, your vulnerabilities and your fears, especially Ms. Daemi, who's doing it in the middle of the night. It's almost two o'clock in the morning where she is.

I really want to acknowledge those statements, because the Persian community in my riding has been desperately worried about their loved ones. More than that, they've been, in many cases, reliving experiences of their own that caused them to come to Canada. The issue is one that's also deeply personal for me, because 30 years ago the Iranian regime sponsored a suicide bus bombing that killed one of my friends and classmates, Alisa Flatow.

The reason I bring that up is the longitudinal aspect of this. There have been a variety of sanctions against Iran over the years. There have been statements by governments; there have been UN resolutions; there have been lawsuits; there have been targeted strikes. There have been a lot of measures taken over the decade, all to no avail, because the regime has persisted.

Ms. Afshin-Jam MacKay, I would like to start with you and just ask for your perspective on what keeps the Iranian regime going. Why does this regime continue to survive?

[Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay]

The regime continues to survive because it sucks the blood out of every single Iranian person, whether it's their money, their dignity or their human rights. They have amassed it, and what do they do with it? Instead of serving its people, what it does is spend it on terrorism and repression and hype up its own mafia, because the IRGC really is like a mafia that holds the purse strings of the entire nation. They help one another. At the same time, neighbouring authoritarian regimes prop up this particular regime. They feed off the same repression handbook, and they don't end up serving their own people.

I'll just stop there.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much.

I just want to make sure that I give my colleague, MP Ho, a chance to also ask some questions.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Thank you.

My question is for Ms. Afshin-Jam MacKay.

You mentioned a role that Canada can play in the support of the crisis management centre for technocratic experts during a potential regime transition, if or when that happens. Could you expand on that a little bit more? What role do you think transitional leaders can play?

[Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay]

Yes. When the “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolutionary protests happened, I noticed at that time that there was a lot of duplication of work among different Iranian diaspora groups with maybe five people creating databases on who had been killed and who had been injured. One by one, I started to ask some of these Iranian diaspora groups to come together to share, so they could form synergies in order to be more efficient and effective.

What I realized, by the end of it, was that we had amassed 100 Iranian diaspora groups and 200 very prominent, active Iranian diaspora leaders, all with varying technocratic degrees of expertise in various fields, such as communication, human rights and medical. I realized that with all these different single entities and islands, if we could somehow centralize this, we could be so much more efficient.

That's the premise of that. We're already working together and doing great things. If the Government of Canada, for example, were to give us a venue or some support, we could really expand and have much more output and productivity.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

This is my final question.

Do you think there's a role to play for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in that transitional phase? Could you elaborate on that in any way?

[Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay]

Is that question for me?

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Yes.

[Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay]

Absolutely.

Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has called himself the transitional leader of this movement. While many people follow him and agree with his stance, there are other people from other ethnic communities and political leanings who see a different transitional leader in their own communities.

I believe that the crown prince could have a very strong unifying capacity if he were to open up to these different groupings and allow for checks and balances, as well as a council of representatives that would help guide that transitional phase.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

I now invite Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe to speak.

You have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Silver, I forgot to ask you a question earlier for the benefit of the committee and the analysts.

Based on your expertise, once again, is the widespread and systematic nature of these human rights violations clearly established today?

[Brandon Silver]

Yes, there are clearly crimes against humanity that have been committed and that are ongoing as we speak, which meet the threshold for a structural investigation.

On the RCMP website, if you were to go to the structural investigation and sensitive investigation page of the RCMP, they set out their criteria for opening an investigation into crimes against humanity, and very clearly those standards have been met.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Silver.

Mr. Abeyat, you haven't had much of a chance to speak. I'm offering you a bit of time in case you would like to add something that hasn't been said. There have been a lot of questions and answers.

Is there anything you absolutely want to add, for the benefit of the committee?

[Farough Abeyat]

My colleague did a great job on including everything that was said. I would like to add more about the Ahwazi people and what they've been going through. It's the same as everyone else; however, the only thing is that it's not being talked about as much as the Iranians. In terms of the Ahwazi people and everything that's currently going on, it's not being talked about. It has gone unnoticed. It's similar to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but the only thing that's different is that it's not talked about.

The Ahwazi people are going through the same thing. Everything is similar. They've been tortured and killed. Everything that's been happening to them is going against everything that's humanitarian and correct. As everyone has said, I hope we can find a solution to give the Ahwazi people's voices more awareness.

Thank you.

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

Ms. Afshin‑Jam MacKay, I'd like to come back to my Conservative colleague's last question, because I think we can discuss sensitive issues here.

As members of Parliament, we are approached by all kinds of people asking us to align with their positions. In the case of Iran, we have been approached by followers of the Shah's son and by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Ms. Radjavi's National Council of Resistance of Iran has also reached out to us.

Shouldn't we first and foremost make sure that we focus on the abuses being committed by the regime right now, and perhaps be cautious about aligning ourselves with certain groups, some of which are more controversial than others?

[Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay]

I want to make it very clear that the Iranian people are united. We're united on the fact that we all want a change of regime. We want democracy. We want the rule of law. We want a constitution based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are all united on this front.

Just as we have here, there's a diversity of political alignment. What's prudent at the moment is to put our political differences aside. I think that, as a parliamentarian, you should meet with all voices, but understand that at the end of the day, we all are fighting for the same thing.

When the regime falls and we are presented with the ballot box, it's only at that time that people will really be able to present their political allegiance: one person, one vote. In the meantime, I think that if governments—the Canadian, U.S. and European governments—were to create a conference of some kind and invite the various political leanings, or even just invite technocratic experts in the meantime, we could really go a long way and bring freedom to our people.

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

I think the most important message you just delivered is that you are all united.

For me, and I think for all members of the committee, it's extremely important to be able to deliver that message, and especially to send it higher up so the government actually takes concrete action and it is not just rhetoric and hot air.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.