Mr. Chair, it is a pleasure to be speaking tonight. Some time ago, I co-founded the Canadian Parliamentarians for Democracy and Human Rights in Iran along with the member for Mount Royal. This is Iran Accountability Week, a week to address the fourfold Iranian threat: nuclear; terrorism; incitement; and, as members have heard tonight, Iran's violations of human rights.
I am proud to be part of the Iranian political prisoner advocacy program. Two years ago, I advocated for Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall of Toronto who was released later in 2013. This year, I am advocating for his cellmate.
Let me introduce Dr. Omid Kokabee, a 33-year-old Iranian experimental laser physicist. He attended university in Iran, Spain and Texas. Dr. Kokabee started his second Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2010.
In January 2011, Dr. Kokabee went home to Iran to visit his family. It was during this family visit that he was arrested, and he has been in detention in Tehran's notorious Evin prison since. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for being convicted of the unsubstantiated charges of communicating with a hostile government, that being the United States, and receiving illegitimate funds. These so called illegitimate funds are actually the normal stipend given to doctoral students at the University of Texas.
While in detention, Dr. Kokabee has been subjected to solitary confinement, prolonged interrogations and pressured to make a confession. His sentence was handed down in May 2012, after an unfair trial in a revolutionary court at which reportedly no evidence was presented against him. Dr. Kokabee has publicly stated that he is being persecuted for repeatedly refusing to work on Iranian military projects and helping to fulfill Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The Iranian regime is keeping Dr. Kokabee in prison because he is refusing to help it with its military program. The Iranian regime's objective to build a nuclear program will likely be the cornerstone of a policy to bully other Middle Eastern states. Iran is a destabilizing force in the region, and it has given the West no reason whatsoever to expect that it will use nuclear power peacefully or responsibly.
Dr. Kokabee has been imprisoned for the last three and a half years. He has been denied proper medical treatment. He is suffering from heart palpitations, shortness of breath and chest pains. These symptoms require immediate examination by a cardiologist. He also has a history of kidney problems and is in severe pain. In addition, Dr. Kokabee has been suffering from stomach problems in prison and he has a history of stomach cancer in his family. Dr. Omid Kokabee's precarious medical condition lends urgency to the call for his immediate release.
Dr. Kokabee has also been awarded a number of awards from U.S. science organizations because he has been taking a courageous stand and shows willingness to endure imprisonment rather than violate his moral stance that his scientific expertise not be used for destructive purposes, and for his efforts to provide hope and education to fellow prisoners.
Dr. Kokabee is yet another example of the travesty of injustice in Iran. I call on President Rouhani to exercise clemency, suspend his sentence and immediately release Dr. Kokabee.
There is no greater threat to international peace and security than the Iranian regime. We must not forget the daily atrocities going on inside Iran, and we must continue to draw attention to them on the world stage. The Iranian people deserve the dignity, respect and freedom that they have been denied for far too long.
Although Iran denies the existence of political prisoners in Iran, as we have already talked about tonight, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran reported, in March 2014, that as of January 14, 2014, at least 895 prisoners of conscience and political prisoners were reportedly imprisoned in Iran. This includes political activists, religious practitioners, human rights defenders, civic activists, journalists, bloggers and student activists. The rate of executions in Iran has been increasing over the past decade and saw a dramatic spike after the 2013 presidential elections. Amnesty International has reported that in 2014 Iran had the second-highest rate of executions in the world, second only behind China.
The special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran reported that there have been at least 753 executions in 2014, and credible civil society groups have reported that there have already been at least 329 executions in Iran in the first three and a half months of 2015.
In the shadow of the nuclear negotiations that are taking place right now, Iran has been engaged in a horrific execution binge. For example, 43 people were executed in a three-day period in April alone. Executions are frequently carried out without respect for due process and the rule of law. As members have already heard, Iran continues to act as a destabilizing force in the region by providing economic and material support to the Assad regime, to Shiite militias in Iraq, to Houthis in Yemen, and supporting terrorist entities, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran's human rights record continues to get worse.
What would happen if Tehran were to obtain nuclear weapons? Would a nuclear-armed Iran somehow change to become a positive force in the world? Would it not be more likely that a nuclear-armed Iran would be emboldened, leading to further instability in the region and greater repression domestically? Might a nuclear Iran not crackdown even further on human rights defenders, minority populations and political activists? Proliferation concerns would increase if Iran possessed nuclear weapons, with a risk of possible nuclear proliferation to other countries or even non-state actors. In the Middle East, this is no small concern. Iran not only refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist but has also repeatedly called for the destruction of the State of Israel. A nuclear Iran, one that felt even less accountable to the international community and generally recognized international norms, would provoke an arms race in the Middle East and would be enormously destabilizing.
Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Iran claims that its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, but does this claim hold up to scrutiny? Russia is supplying all of the nuclear fuel needed for Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr and Russia will do so for any new nuclear power plants that Russia builds for Iran. Therefore, Iran does not need to enrich uranium for these power plants. Nuclear fuel for research reactors and nuclear power plants can be reliably purchased on the international market for pennies on the dollar compared to what it costs Iran to produce enriched uranium domestically. I have to stress that this is an extremely expensive way to produce electricity for a country with some of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world.
The United Nations Security Council deemed Iran's nuclear activities to be a threat to international peace and security under chapter 7 of the UN charter and has imposed sanctions on Iran as a result. Canada has added additional sanctions of its own against Iran and our sanctions regime is one of the most stringent in the world. Iran remains subject to 10 United Nations Security Council resolutions and 12 resolutions of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, for its undeclared nuclear activities. The IAEA board of governors has repeatedly found Iran to be in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Iran continues to be in violation of many aspects of these resolutions which demand, inter alia, that Iran cease all uranium enrichment and ratify and implement the IAEA additional protocol.
In the past, after signing the IAEA safeguards verification additional protocol in 2003, Iran voluntarily agreed to implement it. However, in 2006 Iran ceased to implement the additional protocol. The safeguards verification system depends on all states parties to the non-proliferation treaty to follow the rules. We cannot allow Iran to unilaterally change the rules or it will undermine the global non-proliferation regime.
I have to stress that we cannot be fooled by the charm offensive of President Rouhani. He may be nicer to look at and hear than Ahmadinejad but, as I have already said, executions have gone up. President Rouhani is the same man who was the minister responsible for Iran's nuclear program during this time, and who bragged about fooling the west about its nuclear aspirations. In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, in 2006, Rouhani revealed how Tehran played for time and tried to dupe the west after its secret nuclear program was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002. He boasted that while talks were taking place in Tehran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake, a key stage in the nuclear fuel process, at its Isfahan plant, but at the same time convinced European diplomats that nothing was afoot.
He stated:
From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, “The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything”. The Europeans used to respond, “We trust them”.... When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran, we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan.
Iran refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the UN Security Council resolutions and openly admits to trying to circumvent the sanctions regime, including through ongoing efforts to procure nuclear and dual-use goods for its nuclear program.
I just have to say that this is a regime that cannot be trusted and we have to ensure that everyone here continues to promote human rights in Iran and we also have to ensure that it never gets the ability to have nuclear weapons.