Mr. Chair, I join my hon. colleague in standing with the women of Iran and women around the world. I appreciate the fact that she took some time to honour what this is all about.
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement is part of a longer Iranian story of women's suffrage. For 47 years, women in Iran have been subjugated by the clerical military dictatorship to a radical ideology that has denied them education, opportunity, a franchise and a democracy. It has denied them the freedoms they are born into.
When we saw the uprisings on January 8 and 9 begin, we saw young Iranians from across the country stand up for their own freedom, and it was the women who paid the severest price. The kind of tools of oppression the regime uses is brutal beyond what I can say in this chamber and something we must hold to account.