Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Mr. Cotler, it's actually a very timely question. The House Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. Congress just unanimously adopted legislation last week called the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013. In the legislation there is a specific human rights provision that would require the administration to report back to Congress with a list of all Iranian officials who are implicated in human rights abuses, and then to give a 30-day or 60-day determination, after issuing that report, on the imposition of sanctions against the said individuals.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  As someone who has worked on non-proliferation and sanctions issues for many years, let me underscore that he's exactly right and I think this is exactly where we're heading. If Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards were smart, they would strike the so-called grand bargain with the P5+1.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In terms of specific cases leading up to the election in two weeks, yes. We've seen, as I mentioned, IRGC officials publicly talk about the repression, talk about how these elections should be engineered. We've seen the IRGC's cyber-defence command and its specific special department, the Centre for Inspecting Organised Crimes.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Let me answer your question. One thing we underestimate about the Iranian regime is this. Unlike Saddam's Iraq or North Korea, which are Stalinist dictatorships, the Iranian regime actually cares to some extent about its international reputation. These Iranian regime officials imagine themselves as supporters of a great global revolution, one that needs to expand internationally.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's my pleasure. Thank you very much. Honourable members of this subcommittee, I am privileged to appear before you today to discuss the role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, in a vast system of domestic repression, and to encourage the government of Iran to end these human rights atrocities and the Government of Canada to designate the IRGC, in its entirety, under the Special Economic Measures Act, for its human rights abuses, and to add the IRGC, in its entirety, to Canada's Criminal Code for its terrorist activities.