Irwin Cotler

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Madam Chair, I am delighted to do so and to incorporate by reference some of the recommendations in the all-party foreign affairs committee report.

The recommendations include: one, to provide moral and diplomatic support for the democratic movement in Iran; two, to sanction Iranian officials engaged in repression through travel restrictions, asset seizures, and the like; three, keep the issue of Iranian human rights violations as a priority on the international agenda and as a priority in any bilateral relations with Iran; four, hold Iran to account before the UN Human Rights Council. Incredibly, not one resolution has been passed against Iran in the UN Human Rights Council.

The recommendations also include: reappoint a UN special rapporteur with respect to human rights in Iran; recommend at every appropriate opportunity that the Iranian government grant access to international human rights organizations within its borders and allow domestic human rights organizations to operate in Iran without restriction or harassment; that the Government of Canada encourage Radio Canada International to consider programming in Farsi over its worldwide shortwave service, over conventional AM/FM broadcasting in the gulf region, and over the Internet; to take appropriate action to ensure that Iranian foreign offices, bureaus or media outlets in Canada are not used by the Iranian regime as a source of threat and intimidation of the Iranian diaspora in Canada.

The subcommittee also recommended that the Government of Canada completely remove immunity for foreign government officials in cases of ongoing violations of international human rights law.

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Madam Chair, Ahmadinejad's Iran, and I use that term to distinguish it from the Iranian people who are themselves the targets of massive domestic repression, has emerged as a clear and present danger to international peace and security, to regional and Middle East stability and increasingly and alarmingly to its own people.

Simply put, we are witnessing in Ahmadinejad's Iran the toxic convergence of four distinct yet interrelated threats: the nuclear threat; the genocidal incitement threat; the threat of state-sponsored terrorism; and the systematic and widespread violations of the rights of the Iranian people.

Let there be no mistake about it. Iran is in standing violation of international legal prohibitions against the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide, prohibited under the genocide convention. Iran is a leading state sponsor of international terrorism. Iran is engaged in this massive suppression of the rights of its own people, which is taking place as we meet.

Recent developments have served only to expose and magnify this critical massive threat. For example, in the matter of Iran's nuclear weaponization program, the International Atomic Energy Agency has expressed concern that Iran was “advancing in its efforts to construct a nuclear warhead, to develop a missile delivery system for such a warhead, and a mechanism to detonate such a weapon”. Simply put, the IAEA and arms control experts have reported that Iran has enriched enough nuclear fuel to build these dreaded nuclear bombs.

In the matter of state-sanctioned incitement to genocide, Iranian leaders have continued their incendiary calls for Israel's destruction. Underpinning this state-sanctioned incitement are the dehumanizing and demonizing epidemiological metaphors characterizing Israel as a “cancerous tumour” that must be excised and the Jewish people as “evil incarnate”, the whole as prologue to and justification for Israel's impending demise.

In the matter of the state-sponsorship of international terrorism, Iran appointed as its minister of defence, during President Obama's year of engagement with Iran, in a mocking defiance of President Obama, Ahmed Vahidi, a former head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Vahidi is the object of an Interpol arrest warrant for his role in the planning and perpetration of the greatest terrorist atrocity in Argentina since the end of the Second World War, the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Centre in Argentina.

While the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has emerged as the epicentre of the four-fold Iranian threat, both repressing its own citizens at home, while exporting its terrorism abroad.

In the matter of human rights violations, which will now be the focus of the balance of my remarks, while the eyes of the world are understandably turned toward what is happening in Egypt and North Africa and while we identify with the democratization and the cry for freedom in Egypt and in North Africa, Iranian assaults on human rights and state-sanctioned Iranian executions have escalated dramatically.

In 2011 alone, Iran has executed at least 120 people, a rate of about 1 person every 8 hours, an unprecedented execution binge even by wanton Iranian standards, and which tragically has gone largely unnoticed and which has served as the warrant for this take note debate this evening.

Simply put, Iran is engaged in a wholesale assault on the rights of its own people, including a state-orchestrated wave of arrests, detentions, beatings, torture, kidnappings, disappearances and executions. I join with the minister in the identification of the victims of these massive human rights violations. He has appropriately named the inventory of these ongoing victims who are not simply statistics but who are ongoing victims of these massive violations.

Initially all of this was overlaid with Stalinist show trials and coerced confessions, but even that pretense has now been discarded.

This orchestrated criminal campaign has included a widespread systematic assault on women's rights, the oppression of religious and ethnic minorities, targeting especially the Baha'i, the largest and most oppressed religious minority in Iran, and ethnic Kurds, the imprisonment and murder of political dissidents and the criminalization of freedom of speech, assembly and association, including assaults on students and professors, activists and trade unions.

In particular, Iran has imprisoned more journalists than any other country in the world. It leads the world in per capita executions, including the execution of children. It has imprisoned and even murdered the lawyers who seek to represent these victims of human rights violations, the whole constituting crimes against humanity under international law.

We have been witness, just yesterday, to the incredible spectacle of several hundred Iranian parliamentarians calling for the imprisonment and murder of their fellow parliamentarians and leader of the opposition. The utter hypocrisy of Iranian leaders who criticize Mubarak for silencing protests in Egypt are now using patterns of intimidation, violence, imprisonment and execution to silence the voices of protest in Iran.

Therefore, the question becomes this. What must be done? In particular, in the aftermath of the belated yet welcome United Nations sanctions resolution in June and the targeted economic sanctions subsequently adopted by the U.S., the European Union, Canada and Australia, the question often asked is this. What remains to be done?

I will share with the House a 10-point action agenda, while incorporating by reference the recommendations unanimously adopted by the foreign affairs committee and tabled in Parliament in December 2010.

First, sanctions must not only be adopted, they must be enforced. Otherwise, it is as if the sanctions were never adopted to begin with.

Second, for sanctions to be effective, they must be internationalized. Yet, as we meet, not only have important countries not adopted sanctions, but they are indeed mocking these sanctions through their ongoing violation of them. For example, Russia and China, which initially supported the UN sanctions resolution, are enhancing their economic relations with Iran. Turkey and Brazil not only remain outside the sanctions orbit, but have accelerated their trade with Iran. Germany, Austria and Switzerland continue to increase their trade with Iran, with German-Iranian trade at $6 billion annually.

Third, we need to sanction and enforce the sanctions with respect to Iranian banks, particularly the Iranian central bank, lest it prevent the circumvention of some of these sanctions.

Fourth, sanctions must also target the private sector, as well as the public sector, involving the regulation, the naming and shaming of companies trading or investing in Iran in violation of the sanctions themselves.

Fifth, sanctions must be multi-layered, not only economic but also juridical, diplomatic, political and the like. In a word, a critical mass of threat requires a critical mass of remedy;

Sixth, sanctions must be threat-specific. Thus far, the sanctions regime has focused on the nuclear threat, understandable and necessary, but it runs the risk of ignoring, marginalizing and, indeed, sanitizing the other three threats;

Seventh, in the matter of state-sanctioned incitement to genocide, it is astonishing that, as we meet, not one state party to the genocide convention has initiated any of the mandated legal remedies under international law. I trust the government will adopt the unanimous recommendations of the foreign affairs committee report, which recommended such remedies.

Eighth, in the matter of the massive human rights violations, the response has not only been tepid but indulgent. When there is an outcry, as in the Iranian stoning sentence of 43-year-old mother of two Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, it soon abates while the planned execution still remains, even if not by stoning, and the massive domestic repression continues unabated.

Ninth, negotiations cannot be march of folly. We cannot engage in negotiations with Iran to suspend Iranian enrichment and combat the nuclear threat but airbrush away all the other three threats.

Tenth, in the matter of Iranian-sponsored terror, there needs to be a comprehensive multilateral international effort, not just a U.S. one, to sanction the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In a word, this take note debate must sound the alarm as we stand in solidarity with the people of Iran.

[Judiciary, February 16th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is a basic principle of Canadian democracy and a foundational principle of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms that citizens have a right to petition government for redress of grievance, that they are allowed to criticize their government without fear of reprisal and that the independence and integrity of the courts warrant respect from us all.

Yet, these past few days we have witnessed a minister impugning the decision-making of the federal judiciary, and the member for Oak Ridges—Markham attacking a University of Ottawa law professor, Amir Attaran, for exercising his rights under law, for making representations to the court and for using the democratic process.

This conduct of targeting a person who has otherwise critiqued government policy, who exercises his free speech rights and due process rights, can have a chilling effect on free speech, let alone the undue interference in matters before the courts.

This is not the way a democracy should work. This is not the way to respect the independence of the judiciary and to respect the integrity of processes before the courts.

[Black History Month, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate this special and inspiring celebration, Black History Month in Canada, a time when we recall the long march of African Canadians for freedom and human dignity, and the singular contribution and legacy of African Canadians to the building of a plural Canadian identity and a diverse Canadian mosaic.

This year's Black History Month honours the efforts of people of African descent to abolish slavery, and begin the long march toward equality and liberty. It calls upon us to study and reflect upon the value of their contribution to our nation.

In remembering and reaffirming the historic contribution of the African Canadian community, we affirm the building of a plural Canadian culture, one in which, in the words of Martin Luther King, people will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.

[Petitions, February 9th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition on behalf of Saeed Malekpour, a permanent resident of Canada who has been languishing incommunicado in Iran in the notorious Evin Prison for two years under the shadow of death.

The petitioners note that Mr. Malekpour was forced to confess to fabricated Internet-related charges after enduring repeated tortures by revolutionary guard interrogators.

The petitioners also note that Mr. Malekpour has been denied access to counsel, denied access to his case file, denied the right to adduce evidence and denied any right to a fair hearing or fair trial.

Recently, after his wife made public a letter written by Saeed Malekpour to the head of the judiciary detailing the tortures endured at the hands of the revolutionary guards, he was charged with “conspiring with his spouse against national security” and is now under imminent threat of execution by Iranian authorities who have embarked on an unprecedented execution binge, having executed 65 people in the month of January 2011 alone.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to urge the Minister of Foreign Affairs to urgently intervene on Mr. Saeed Malekpour's behalf and to secure the suspension of this imminent execution and his release and his safety.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, January 31st, 2011]

With regard to Statistics Canada, what contracts under $10,000 did it award from September 1, 2009, to the present, including the vendor's name, the date, the amount and the description?

[Situation in Haiti, December 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, since I am the last person and effectively have benefited from that which has been said by my colleagues, particularly those still remaining as this debate now comes to a close, I just hope we do not come together only for an emergency debate and then leave this chamber and hope that somehow the emergency resolves itself without our participation, leadership and engagement.

We need to look at the question of Haiti not as something that strikes our conscience whenever an emergency arises, such as an earthquake, a cholera outbreak, hurricane devastation and the life, but we need to address the underlying concerns that cause the devastation that brought about such suffering from the earthquake, the cholera epidemic and the like.

We need to address immediately the political turbulence that has arisen with respect to the election and we have to come together as a Canadian government, as a Canadian community, with the international community to address the particular compelling concerns of democratic government and legitimacy, health issues and the whole gamut of priorities that I sought to identify, together with my colleagues, this evening.

[Situation in Haiti, December 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the idea of having a special envoy. There needs to be someone on the ground who can set priorities and provide humanitarian and other assistance.

Now, I will briefly summarize the four priorities in Haiti's national action plan. That can be a starting point for us. First, there is the whole issue of infrastructure, urban development and so on. Second, there are all the economic issues. Third, there are social issues such as education, health and so forth. The last priority concerns democratic governance, which also means justice, security, public administration and all essential institutions.

I think Canada can be a leader in working toward these four priorities and setting the policies to achieve them.

[Situation in Haiti, December 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with my colleague, as he first enunciated it as a matter of general principle, that we must first turn to the Haitian government, and in particular the Haitian people, but we need to be there for them and we need to be there with a sense of urgency. We need to do this with a sense of coordination, because right now we are lacking that coordination, and rather, witnessing fragmentation as between intergovernmental assistance, the role of the UN and the role of state actors, NGOs and the like. We need an overall coordinated effort, and I believe Canada can help in that overall coordination in respect of the identification of principles and priorities to help alleviate the human suffering.

[Situation in Haiti, December 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that the situation in Haiti surfaces, or resurfaces, and touches the Canadian conscience only when there is a situation of crisis.

In that regard I want to commend my colleague, the member for Bourassa, for his constancy and commitment over the years. He has not just spoken at a time of clear and compelling crisis, but he has been there through the years, sounding the alarm, alerting us to what is happening in Haiti, calling upon us to mobilize our resources and the conscience of the international community in that regard.

Even before the earthquake that devastated Haiti, the cholera epidemic and the turbulent elections in its wake, Haiti was not only the poorest country in the western hemisphere by a significant margin, it was one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.

Moreover Haiti, in recent years, has struggled with problems, whether they be ongoing political upheavals, health crises, severe environmental degradation, or an annual barrage of hurricanes that wiped out most of the country's food crops, destroying its irrigation system and causing acute hunger for millions, even before the devastation of the earthquake.

The deforestation and over-farming left much of Haiti eroded and barren, undermining its citizens' farming efforts, driving up food prices and leaving the country even more vulnerable to natural disasters, let alone the earthquake, again, in its wake. Its long history of political instability and corruption only added to the turmoil.

Accordingly, and this must always be appreciated, the member for Bourassa was warning us about all of these matters, before the earthquake, before the cholera epidemic, before the turbulence in the political culture. He warned us that Haiti faced significant developmental challenges that we ought to have been addressing all these years.

Even before the earthquake, et cetera, fewer than 30% of Haitians had access to electricity, with roughly half of the users tapping into the national grid illegally. There were longstanding problems with garbage and solid waste removal. Clogged canals presented serious and recurring risks of flooding. In a word, it is a hard to separate what is due to the poverty and hunger levels that predated the earthquake, and what is due to the earthquake and the cholera epidemic, which followed in its wake.

Approximately 80% of the people in this country lived on less than $2 a day even before the earthquake. It was that abject poverty, that hunger, that desolation that we had not been properly addressing and redressing before all of the recent calamities that have occurred and brought us to this emergency debate this evening.

Accordingly, the enormous difficulties that have confronted Haiti for decades have only been compounded by the devastation of the earthquake, the cholera outbreak and the turbulence of the election, which have added a sense of urgency to the critical issues that were there before but which taken together have the potential to derail efforts to rebuild the country and to address and alleviate the human suffering.

We are now in a serious crisis, and if we do not act immediately this crisis can begin to spiral out of control in many sectors and on many levels.

In summary, there are some 11 critical challenges that confront the international community in trying to suggest a framework for action for the rebuilding of the country, one that will help provide us an identification of the priorities so that we can move forward in concert with the resilience of the Haitian people.

The Haitians are a resilient and courageous people who have, regrettably, been plagued by terrible leadership, natural disasters and all that we have heard this evening, but a resilient people who, given the opportunity, can address and redress the human suffering that has befallen and besets them.

I will now go through some of these critical challenges at this point. First, one needs to establish a comprehensive rebuilding strategy and a set of priorities. While the Haitian government's action plan for a national recovery and development represented a good start, frankly, Haitians need, are waiting for and are asking for concrete guidance on everything from where displaced persons can resettle, to how the educational system will be rebuilt, to what the nature is of economic decentralization and private sector investment. Fundamentally, they want to know how they will be able to earn a living, how they will send their children to school, how they will be able to access health services and how they will deal with the daily emergencies that are besetting them as we meet.

Second, this also means building leadership and capacity in the government of Haiti. However, as I say this, we need to appreciate, as is well known and mentioned this evening, that the government of Haiti was decimated by the earthquake. It has lost civil servants, senior leaders and most of the ministry buildings. In other words, having lost so much of its own personnel in the earthquake, the government of Haiti finds itself with a limited capacity.

However, Haitians need to be reassured that their government can begin the rebuilding process in a cohesive fashion and executive a well thought out plan, underpinned by the presence of the international community, by the presence of the Canadian government in concert with other governments and the international community and with the local and international NGOs, some 10,000 of whom are there right now doing humanitarian work, helping out in matters of health, shelter building and the like.

Third, we need to empower the Haitian recovery commission. Simply put, the commission does represent an opportunity to change the way one can do business in Haiti. One can establish an expert teams-based approach that helps build a political consensus, but it will not be able to do it alone and will require the resources that have been referenced this evening by my colleagues, the member for Honoré-Mercier, the member for Bourassa and the like.

Fourth, we need to address the resettlement issue. The hundreds of thousands of Haitians trapped in temporary or informal settlements is a major recovery issue. We need to offer solutions for moving displaced people out of the dozens of tent cities that have cropped up. There is land available but land tenure issues and other complications need to be resolved. The longer Haitians continue to live in makeshift camps, the harder it will be to reintegrate them into communities and to take down the camps.

Fifth, we need to build democratic governments and legitimacy. There is a crisis of confidence, of trust and of morale, as my colleagues have mentioned this evening. At this point what is so necessary is to have a legitimate and authentic democratically elected government in order to lay a strong and sustainable foundation for Haiti's future.

Canada can play an important role here, an important monitoring role and an important advocacy role in ensuring that a forthcoming election can be democratically held with appropriate security, with proper training and with the identification of three person candidates, because that may be what is needed, as was referenced earlier this evening, at this point.

Sixth, donors need to speak with one voice and improve coordination. There is too much fragmentation in the donor community and too much disagreement with the necessary aid not necessarily reaching the required recipient.

That leads me to my seventh point, which is that there is a need to coordinate Canadian government assistance efforts with other governments, with the network of donors, with the United Nations and with the government of Haiti's own development framework lest the overlaps, the redundancies and the dysfunction prevent the aid from reaching the desired recipients and targets. As my colleagues have put it, oversight and accountability are essential mechanisms in that regard where the Canadian government can play an important role for that purpose.

With regard to our own involvement here, we have yet to deliver with respect to the aid that has been promised. We have yet to provide the necessary transparency with regard to the aid that needs to be delivered.

Close to a month ago the Liberal Party called for urgent action to confront the cholera crisis in Haiti, calling on the government to deploy emergency strategic support team to do a rapid assessment of where the disaster assistance response team, DART, should be offered, calling for the urgent delivery of aid money, calling for the appointment of a Canadian special envoy and calling for the immediate deployment of a CIDA assessment team to see how we could improve our response to the cholera epidemic.

Such a team could work in close communication with the strategic support team of DART and Canada could mobilize the international community, working with other international players to support the effort here that desperately needs to be put in place, because the time is urgent and regrettably and tragically the crisis is now.

Eight, we need to rebuild Haiti's decimated civil service. The bureaucracy and civil service suffered as we know a triple blow from the earthquake. Almost all the ministry buildings were damaged or destroyed due to their proximity to the epicentre of the earthquake. Huge numbers of civil servants were themselves killed in the course of the earthquake. As of today, most ministries are operating out of makeshift offices including tents. Computer systems are not functioning, electricity is threadbare and basic supplies are hard to come by.

In a word, the civil service has to be rebuilt. The delivery systems for delivering all that is needed in all the sectors to which I have referred must be rebuilt and mobilized and Canada has a role to play in this regard.

Nine, we need to maintain the security gains. Right before the earthquake struck security in fact was one of the success stories in the country, with neighbourhoods such Cité Soleil having gained significant stability. Regrettably, recently, as we know, not only has security become more difficulty, not only is there an increase in gang violence, but it has now become vital that the international community join together with the Haitian government to build the capacity of the Haitian national police and the key justice sector reforms to be advanced in order to confront prison abuses, indefinite pretrial detentions and human rights abuses.

As well, continued international support for the United Nations stabilization mission in Haiti is essential, though the international community must ensure that this United Nations stabilization mission is not itself over taxed in such a way that we defer to it matters which we have to undertake ourselves in order to ensure the job gets done.

Ten, we need to bring the broader Haitian community into the rebuilding process. It is crucial that Haitian civil society and those outside the governmental process participate in the reconstruction of Haiti. Rebuilding the country must not be politicized, but should be an inclusive process that attempts to build an equal and responsible and accessible society.

The government of Haiti must embrace civil society and Haitian non-governmental organizations and the private sector must be part of the rebuilding process. Without a broader inclusion of Haitian stakeholders, the formation of what has sometimes been referred to, and one could speak of this much more, before the recent earthquake, the cholera epidemic, the turbulent election, one spoke then of reimagining Haiti. I am not saying that so much now of reimagining Haiti. I think we now have to speak of saving Haiti and we have to mobilize all the resources for that purpose.

Finally, health concerns must be a priority lest the lack of making health a priority undermine the rebuilding efforts to which I have been referring, thereby eroding morale, trust, credibility and effectiveness. We need urgent action to confront the cholera epidemic, just as we need urgent action to confront the cross-section of health-related problems in Haiti.

Eleven months after the earthquake, Haiti is at a crossroads. It is faced with challenges in many areas: infrastructure, resettlement, job creation, education, health, environment, justice, security, and of course, democratic government and legitimacy. It must confront all these challenges with a necessarily reduced capacity because of the earthquake and the related devastation.

It is essential that Canada, the United Nations and the international community, including the international donor community, improve their involvement, their coordination and their relationship with the Haitian government and people so that an underresourced Haitian government, together with a resilient Haitian people, can make the important policy decisions that need to be made, and together with that resilient, patient people, can begin to alleviate the human suffering lest the kinds of crises that I have been describing begin to bring us into the area of catastrophe.