Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for a very good question. Iran is a vast country with an incredible history of a people and civilization that goes back thousands of years. I have a great admiration for the people. Iran has a young population. I think over 50% are young people with an incredible will and belief that they want to leave that repressive regime.
My condemnation, as the hon. member has mentioned, is of the intolerable regime in Iran that in fact is suffocating and repressing its own people. It is an intolerable, appalling condition and a lack of respect for human rights.
Many of the people of Iran care deeply about human rights. I have a great admiration for them. There are many people in diasporas as well who have fled that very oppressive regime. I have known many of those people over the years. They are intelligent, sophisticated individuals with an incredible culture. Many of them are academics, engineers, people with great professions who have done extremely well in Canada. Canada is very proud. We are very pleased to have so many of them in Canada who are doing an incredible job.
My professor, when I was at Oxford, is also of Iranian background and is Baha'i as well. I know of the incredible wealth of people all over the world who had to flee that repressive regime.
My condemnation is of the government and not of the people. My hope is with the young people of Iran, that they will rise up against the government and get rid of it. It is not a government that is serving anybody any good. It is certainly one of the most repressive regimes on earth.
Even though I am not allowed to do this, I want to recognize a group of Friends of Baha'i who are in the gallery.