Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue no. 4 - Evidence - May 4, 2016
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 4, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 11:33 a.m. to monitor issues relating to human rights and, inter alia, to review the machinery of government dealing with Canada's international and national human rights obligations.
Senator Jim Munson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, senators. We have two special guests, one via video all the way from Oman, is my understanding. We'll get to you, sir, in a moment.
Before we begin, this is a rather important one-day hearing because of it being Iranian Accountability Week. We, as the Human Rights Committee, want to be on the record that many treaties and new entreaties have developed over the last many months dealing with Iran, but that doesn't take away the aspect of human rights issues in Iran.
Before I was a politician or a senator, I spent some time in Iran in the late 1980s as a journalist. And I don't think, on a personal level, a lot of things have changed when it comes to the human rights of the people in Iran. It was tough then, and I think it's tough now. It's important that parties on both sides — and hopefully soon, independent senators here — have our own independent views in the Senate of Canada about these issues. We want to make sure that these issues are expressed today in this important hearing.
I'd like to have the senators introduce themselves, starting with the deputy chair.
Senator Ataullahjan: Good morning. I'm Senator Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario.
Senator Frum: Senator Linda Frum, Ontario.
Senator Ngo: Senator Ngo from Ontario.
Senator Hubley: Elizabeth Hubley, Prince Edward Island.
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
Senator Martin: And on the West Coast, Yonah Martin.
The Chair: My name is Jim Munson. I'm an Ontario senator.
[Translation]
Today we are focusing on human rights in Iran.
[English]
On our first panel this morning, we have the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director. As an individual, we have Houchang Hassan-Yari, Professor, Political Science Department, Royal Military College of Canada, who is going to talk to us via video conference. He's certainly not talking to us from Kingston, Ontario, or anywhere here, but he's in Oman. I would like to have the professor open up our remarks, just in case we lose the video with you.
Sir, you have the floor. Welcome to the Senate Human Rights Committee in Ottawa.
Houchang Hassan-Yari, Professor, Political Science Department, Royal Military College of Canada, as an individual: Thank you very much, honourable senator, and all the representatives around the table.
I would like to thank the committee clerk for the invitation. My remarks are going to be very short. Hopefully we are going to have a dialogue.
One of the problems that we are facing in Iran is the question of disrespect for human rights. If you go back to the first days of the Iranian revolution and since the Islamic Republic was created, we are constantly facing the same problems. It seems that since inception, the problem of human rights is one of the main issues that the Iranian population, but also the international community, has had to deal with.
Among the rights in general, I would like to emphasize the rights of the prisoners. Those are the people who normally die in silence. If they are not well known or if they are not connected to major political families in Iran, normally nobody hears about them except their families.
There are so many cases of political prisoners who died in Iran and others who continue to suffer from all kinds of illnesses. Many of them didn't have the kind of illness that they catch in prison as when they were at liberty, but the most common problems of health that they face are related to the question of heart disease or heart attacks, kidney problems, back problems, knee problems and so on. One of the main reasons is that obviously the prisons are overcrowded and there is not enough space for prisoners to move.
The second problem is related to those who are known in Iran as political prisoners. They are treated badly by the Islamic Republic — not only them, but also their families. There are many cases where the rights of the family members are constantly and continuously violated. For example, the children, if they go to university, when they finish university they don't get their diploma. They are sent to the Ministry of Intelligence and then the ministry tries to pressure them to ask the parents, or whichever relative is in prison, to repent and ask for a pardon from the leader.
Other problems that exist in the prison are also related to the question of disrespect — the absence of any respect for the dignity of prisoners. Here, I'm talking about the political and non-political prisoners. For example, there are many cases where the prisoners die while in custody. Most of the time, because of lack of care, their bodies are dumped in the garbage cans for a few days. After that, they are taken out.
So there is a lot of information in Iran on these kind of issues, but also related to the pressure on the family of prisoners and so forth.
So I am asking you to be very attentive and listen very carefully to what Dr. Ahmed Shaheed is going to talk to you about. As you know, he is a rapporteur designated by the UN who is denied to go to Iran. In itself this is a violation of United Nations rights, because when a reporter is designated, that person has to have access to the country. They are free to talk to the people, including the prisoners, which is not the case with Dr. Shaheed.
I can stop here. As I said earlier, I'm very interested in the discussion that we are going to have with honourable senators.
The Chair: Thank you very much, professor. I appreciate that. We are also joined this morning by Senator Nancy Ruth from Ontario, and she's an esteemed member of this committee.
Mark Dubowitz, as I mentioned before, is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz, you have the floor.
Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Thank you for inviting me to testify before this distinguished committee. I want to applaud all of you and your colleagues for holding this annual Iran Accountability Week to really shine a spotlight on Iran's deplorable human rights abuses.
I'm going to jump very quickly to some recommendations before summarizing the human rights situation. I know you're hearing from Dr. Shaheed later today, and I think he is certainly very well positioned to give you much more detail and granularity on the human rights situation in Iran.
I will touch upon it and summarize some of the more egregious aspects, but I want to get to the specific policy recommendations, because it's important to be asking ourselves the question: What can we do about it, beyond repeating every year the state of Iran's human rights abuses and shining that spotlight?
I would suggest to this committee that there are two very specific things that Canada can do.
The first is that Ottawa should impose human rights sanctions on the state organs responsible for institutionalized human rights abuses in Iran, as well as the individuals who work for these state organs. These are the people, the companies and the sources of revenues that facilitate and embolden Iran's vast system of domestic oppression. Canada should single out those institutions, such as prisons or military bases, at which abuses like torture and arbitrary detention occur. Many of these include the notorious Evin Prison Ward 2A for political prisoners. Senator Munson, from your days reporting, I think you're familiar Evin Prison and the real horrors that take place there.
It's important to understand that the prison is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, who are the praetorian guards of the regime. They are currently still designated under U.S. law, European law and I believe Canadian law.
On that issue of the Revolutionary Guards, in previous testimony before this committee and other parliamentary committees, I've recommended that Canada should amend the Special Economic Measures Act, SEMA, on Iran. SEMA enables the Canadian government to impose sanctions if there's a situation that constitutes a grave breach of international peace and security. In the past, this has focused on Iran's support of its missile proliferation and its nuclear program. In the wake of a nuclear agreement, there's been a serious erosion of these sanctions.
I would caution, however, that Iran's missile activities, sponsorship of terrorism and its vast system of domestic repression all constitute as a threat to international peace and security.
Canada has been at the forefront of using SEMA in the past. Human rights abuses by the Iranian regime fulfill the basic criteria under subsection 4(1) of SEMA, which is already being used to sanction human rights abuses by Syria's Assad regime, the Government of Zimbabwe and the Government of Burma, among others.
In December 2012, the Government of Canada added the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, the overseas terrorist arm of IRGC, to the list of terrorist groups under Canada's Criminal Code. It was a critical step in recognizing the threat represented by the IRGC.
As I urged in prior testimony, the Government of Canada should take the next logical step and designate the IRGC in its entirety under SEMA for its role in violating the human rights of the Iranian population and under the Criminal Code for its terrorist operations. This would not be unprecedented, because the Government of Canada would be following the leadership of the Obama administration, which designated the IRGC in its entirety for human rights abuses under Executive Order 13553 in June 2011 and in April 2012 under Executive Order 13606.
So, again, this would be bringing Canadian law in line with U.S. law on this. By designating the IRGC in its entirety for repression and human rights abuses, this would have far-reaching practical consequences on the ability of the IRGC to operate internationally. It would also send a powerful message to the Iranian people who have been suffering for decades under the brutality of the IRGC.
With my remaining few minutes, let me summarize some of the main aspects of Iran's record of human rights abuses.
Since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, there has been some widespread — but I would argue incorrect — optimism that he would shepherd in greater freedoms for the Iranian people. Instead, as I'm sure you'll hear from Dr. Shaheed, the situation has gotten worse. He'll be testifying, but I think he's said there's been no meaningful change on the ground, even though the tone and tenor has changed.
The human rights abuses include limiting freedom of expression of the press, engaging in arbitrary detention and torture, discriminating against women and ethnic and religious minorities. And the regime uses these instruments of repression as ways to rule through fear.
Juvenile execution is one particularly egregious area. Last year, Iran executed a record number of prisoners — at least 966 — including 16 juveniles. Amnesty International called Iran one of the world's last executioners of juvenile offenders. Amnesty said that Iran's legal codes allow girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 to be sentenced to death after ". . . unfair trials, including those based on forced confessions extracted through torture and other ill- treatment.''
As of January this year, there are 161 juvenile offenders sitting on death row — two were executed in October last year — and their stories are heartbreaking. If we have time, I would ask your permission to tell you some of those stories on the rights of children in Iran. Only last month, a 6-year-old Afghan refugee was brutally murdered. It very much highlighted the experience of children. Migrant and refugee children, children of religious and ethnic minorities and children of the LGTB community are particularly vulnerable to abuses, including violence and state-sanctioned discrimination. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse, because the legal age of marriage for girls is only 13, and girls as young as 9 can be married with permission of the court and their fathers. Earlier this year, the UN condemned Iran for an increasing number of forced marriages that place young girls of risk of "sexual violence, including marital rape,'' and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said Iran's legal provisions "authorize, condone or lead to child sexual abuse.''
On religious freedom, the U.S. State Department year after year condemns Iran as a country of particular concern and has noted that these conditions have been deteriorating over the past year. A recent report by the U.S. government notes that the Islamic Republic of Iran uses religious laws to silence reformers, including human-rights defenders and journalists for expressing their internationally protected rights or freedom of expression.
With respect to the freedom of the press, yesterday was World Press Freedom Day, and Iran "celebrated'' that by last week sentencing four journalists working for reformist newspapers to a combined 27 years in prison. I'm sure you'll hear from Dr. Shaheed that there are at least 47 journalists and social media activists in prison as of January, and Iran has been ranked in the top three of the world's worst jailers of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
When we talk about Iran's human rights abuses, we often ignore Iran's role in the brutal slaughter that's taking place in Syria, where over 400,000 Syrians have been killed. There are 11 million refugees and internally displaced people. The brutality there is horrifying. We certainly could devote an entire day to cataloguing the role that the revolutionary guards have played in the brutal slaughter that has been taking place in Syria.
So, again, there is much to be said. I would conclude with this: What greatly concerns me is that Iran, right now, is attempting to try to establish international legitimacy by using the nuclear agreement as a pathway. I believe they're going to follow very much the same strategy they've used on the nuclear side that they're using on the illicit financial side, which is to try to persuade the international community that they should be legitimatized without admitting to past practices of their deception, without turning the corner on any of these practices.
We've got to be aware that Iran's strategy of denial and deception on the human rights side is well underway. In fact, when the UN renewed Dr. Shaheed's mandate to investigate human rights abuses, the Iranians called his reporting biased, discriminatory, subjective and unbalanced. As the professor noted, they are not even allowing Dr. Shaheed into the country. We need to hold Iran accountable. Legitimacy cannot be granted without a dramatic change in this respect for freedom and human rights of its people.
I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify and I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Dubowitz. We appreciate that. We have been joined by two other senators on our committee, Senator Raynell Andreychuk and Senator Ratna Omidvar. Welcome to the committee.
The presence of so many senators here this morning shows how we have a lot of empathy and are trying to have more understanding about the abuses that are going on in Iran. One of the beacons of light in the Senate, who has not let this Iranian issue go away, is Senator Linda Frum, and so I will ask Senator Frum to start off the questioning.
Senator Frum: Thank you, chair. I appreciate those kind words as well.
Thank you very much to both of our witnesses today, and, as the chair rightly says, we sit here as Canadian legislators and wonder what we can do to help the situation. I appreciate, Mr. Dubowitz, your specific policy recommendations.
My question to both of you is actually more about diplomatic issues. As you know, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion has said repeatedly that Canadian re-engagement with Iran should not be taken as a sign of Canada accepting Iran's human rights record, but my question to you is: Do you believe that this can be the case? If Canada re- engages diplomatically with Iran, is that conducive to our ability to pressure Iran to improve its human rights record, or will it be seen as some kind of approval on the part of Canada if we do re-enter into diplomatic relations, some kind of acceptance of their human rights record?
Mr. Dubowitz: Senator Frum, thank you for that question. I think it depends. And my concern is that in re- establishing diplomatic relations with Iran and reopening the Canadian embassy, it will be sort of back to business as usual — and I underscore the word "business'' — and that the embassy will really be used to enable Canadian-Iranian business, without actually using the embassy to continue to underscore Iran's regional aggression and support for terrorism and its egregious human rights abuses. I think it sends the wrong message to the Iranian people if this becomes a business embassy as opposed to an embassy that is used to continue to reach out to Iranian dissidents, to highlight Iran's human rights abuses.
I think that, if the Government of Canada were to decide to re-establish diplomatic relations, it would need to couple that re-engagement with a very strong policy step that would underscore that Canada remains committed to defending the Iranian people. One way they could do that, again, is, at the same time as you would establish diplomatic relations, you would designate the revolutionary guards for human rights abuses under SEMA. Again, I'm not here to recommend whether or not Canada should open an embassy, but I would say that what I have seen, particularly on the European side of things, is that those embassies are not being used to further the human rights record of Iran or to hold Iran accountable. They are being used to facilitate European business and re-entry of that business back into Iran, which I think is an enormous moral failing on the part of our European friends. I hope Canada, which has shown extraordinary leadership on human rights issues, doesn't make that mistake.
The Chair: We do have a delay. So just wait a second, and we'll hear from the professor. Go ahead, sir.
Mr. Hassan-Yari: Yes, thank you. Can I speak in French in responding to the question?
The Chair: Yes, absolutely.
[Translation]
Mr. Hassan-Yari: I think Canada should commit diplomatically and reopen the embassy. Iran's leader and guardian of the revolution would like Iran to remain isolated. In isolating Iran —
[English]
Sorry.
The Chair: Go right ahead, sir. We just had a small problem. Continue, please.
Mr. Hassan-Yari: Can you hear me?
The Chair: Yes, I can. Go right ahead.
Mr. Hassan-Yari: I was saying that the best way, I believe, to influence Iran is to engage with Iran. The Iranian leader would like to see Iran isolated. The revolutionary guards are not in favour of any kind of engagement of Iran with the international community and, consequently, when you are absent, you cannot have anything to say.
So I would suggest to Canada to engage with Iran but to be extremely cautious. Do this engagement internationally, in concert with the European countries and other allied countries, like Australia, Japan and so forth. So, in that sense, let the Iranian leadership know that they are accountable for their actions, and, consequently, that they have to respond to the abuse of human rights.
So, if Canada wants to engage, I believe it's a good idea, and there is a way to do it. It's in conjunction with Western countries and, consequently, to make it absolutely clear to the leadership of Iran because, in Iran, the president doesn't really have much power, the others, the ministers, even less. So consequently, the leader should understand the consequences of a violation of human rights and, if Iran wants, really, to become a normal member of the international community, it has to respond positively to its obligations.
Senator Frum: So do you feel the same way about sanctions relief? Do you feel that removing the sanctions relief would be helpful to advancing human rights in Iran, or is it a tool that Canada should still be using to try to put pressure on the regime?
Mr. Hassan-Yari: I think that, if we look at the Iranian picture, those people who suffered most from the sanctions are ordinary people. If you look at the number of illegal ports that exist in the Persian Gulf and are used by the revolutionary guards, you see the magnitude of corruption and the benefit that the revolutionary guards and those who are associated with them got from the sanctions.
So the sanctions, despite the fact that, in the past few years, we heard all kinds of discourse about smart sanctions and targeted sanctions, made the Iranian people weaker than before. We see the same situation as existed in Iraq prior to the American invasion, when, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was in a position to build even more palaces and the Iraqi people became extremely dependent. Obviously, people who are dependent and hungry cannot protest or defend their rights.
I would suggest that relieving sanctions could be positive for the Iranian population but again, here, as in the case of diplomatic engagement, I believe there should be a control over what is going on, where the money goes and so forth.
If the money goes to Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups, the Iranian people will not get anything from their resources. But if there is a condition attached to the release of money, engagement and trade with Iran, then I believe that could be positive.
Mr. Dubowitz: I respectfully disagree with that analysis for the following reason: International engagement with Iran today means engaging with the Revolutionary Guards and the supreme leader. The Revolutionary Guards control about a third of Iran's economy, and, importantly, they control all the strategic sectors of Iran's economy that international businesses are interested in. Whether it is oil, natural gas, petrochemicals, mining, engineering, construction, industrial and automotive, these are key sectors of Iran's economy and they are controlled by the Revolutionary Guards.
The supreme leader himself controls a holding company called the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, or EIKO. It's a $95 billion holding company, and through it the supreme leader controls stakes in most of Iran's major companies, including significant companies that are traded on the Tehran stock exchange.
Why is this important? This is important because when Canadian businesses go back to Iran, if they want to do business in any key strategic sectors of Iran's economy, they invariably are going to do business with the supreme leader through his holding company, or you're going to do business with the Revolutionary Guards and their front companies. Not only is that not good for the Iranian people, it's actually going to be in violation of U.S. law because the United States will maintain powerful secondary sanctions relating to missile proliferation, the Revolutionary Guards, terrorism and human rights, specifically on key IRGC entities that control Iran's economy.
I think when you talk about lifting Canadian sanctions you have to, first, be very careful that when you're lifting those sanctions you're not enabling the Revolutionary Guards and the supreme leader in the most hard line elements of the regime. And, second, that you're not going to be in violation of law because the United States will maintain powerful secondary sanctions, and if anything, those sanctions are going to intensify under a Clinton or a Trump administration. I would caution both policy makers and Canadian businesses to understand the thicket of sanctions and laws that will remain and constrain Canadian business.
Senator Ataullahjan: I thank you both for your presentations this morning.
We consistently hear the word moderate leadership attached to the new leadership. How moderate are they, and has the situation for women, girls and minorities improved at all under the present leadership at all? Is it getting better, or is it getting worse?
Mr. Dubowitz: Thank you for the question. At FDD, we did a systematic analysis of the writings, speeches and the autobiography of Hassan Rouhani and — I probably don't have to tell you — you and your colleagues would appreciate that Mr. Rouhani is very much a father of the revolution. He has been part of the national security infrastructure of the Islamic republic for decades. He's a founding father of the theocracy and the nuclear weapons program.
In fact, former Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who was the chief U.S. negotiator on the Iran deal and actually forged the deal, was recently quoted as saying, "There are hardliners in Iran, and then there are hard- hardliners in Iran.'' There are no moderates in the regime. "Rouhani is not a moderate, he is a hard liner.''
I think that there is a great mistake in believing that Hassan Rouhani either has the power for or the intention of reforming the Islamic republic and its revolutionary regime. The press is right: Mr. Rouhani, like other presidents, lacks the power to actually make those changes. Even if he had the power, it is my analysis that he lacks the intent to actually change, moderate or reform the Islamic revolution.
We've seen evidence of that since the deal has been reached. In fact, one would have thought that this regime would have moderated since it reached the nuclear agreement, but in the months since the agreement was reached, human rights have deteriorated, Iran has taken more hostages, they've engaged in more missiles tests and more illegal arms shipments, they have fired on a U.S. carrier, they are continuing to provide significant and increasing support to Bashar al-Assad in his brutal slaughter in Syria and they continue to provide material support to the Houthi rebels in Yemen and to designated Iraqi Shiites militias.
This is since the deal was signed. There's been no evidence yet that this regime is reforming in any sense, and it is my assessment that, even with the potential imminent death of Mr. Khamenei, the succession process that will take place in Iran will yield yet another individual who is dedicated to the preservation of Islamic republic and the revolution. We need to guard ourselves against this knee-jerk reaction that, somehow, these men are moderate. They may be pragmatic but they are certainly dedicated to the revolution and its ideals.
Mr. Hassan-Yari: Thank you very much, senator, for your question. I believe we have to be cautious, really. The picture in Iran is not black and white; there are so many colours in between.
I will say that the harsh reaction to the signing of the nuclear agreement is a very clear indication, for me, that Khamenei — the leader — and his office are not happy with the deal. It tells me that, yes, he is the ultimate decider but he's not the only one. I would suggest that the Iranian system is very complex in the sense that the power is shared amongst so many people, which we do not see from the outside. When Khamenei says something, everyone says yes, but you don't see the action in the direction that Khamenei wants.
I would also suggest that involvement of the Iranian regime in the negotiations of the nuclear deal was forced on Khamenei. He was not in favour of that, and again, if we are seeing more pressure on Rouhani's government, his ministers, his vice-president and so many other people since the agreement was reached, it is a reaction precisely to that. It tells the Iranian government and the Iranian people, but also the outside world, that the agreement is signed but it doesn't mean that he is going to bend.
I see this as a measure of his weakness and not his force. Again, there are so many instances where we have seen Khomeini forced to make concessions to so many people, including to Rouhani, although I agree with Mr. Dubowitz that Rouhani has past experience with security.
That doesn't mean that Rouhani is exactly Khamenei. As Khatami before was exactly Khamenei or even Rafsanjani. This is why we see that the judiciary in Iran makes it impossible for Khatami, the president who was in power for eight years, to be interviewed by Iran. His passport has been confiscated and so many other cases of this nature show very clearly that there are dissidents in Iran. All of them believe in the Islamic Republic, but their interpretation and understanding of it varies. They do not believe in the same things, so in that sense I would suggest that we have to be cautious. Again, if I go back to the question of engagement, I would put conditions on the engagement. We have to do it collectively with others, and we have to be extremely vigilant.
Finally, no matter what the leader says, it doesn't mean that everybody is following his dictates. That's simply not the case.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll have supplementary questions. I have four senators on the list and 20 minutes with this panel.
Senator Ataullahjan: I want to speak about minorities. We've heard about the discrimination against the Sunni Muslims, the Sufis and the Shias who convert to Sunni. But I think the worst discrimination is against the Baha'is, who are regularly denied their basic human rights. I have friends who are Baha'is and in talking to them, they tell me they feel that they face discrimination of the most horrible kind from cradle to grave. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Dubowitz: I think it's indisputable that the Baha'i community in Iran has suffered egregious repression and worse than any other minority group.
I think it speaks to the fundamental nature of this regime. One should ask why it would use the instruments of the state in such a violent and repressive way against a community that, by all accounts, is peaceful. It has struggled for years to try and do its best to assimilate into Iranian society and remain patriotic, but it has a different set of beliefs and practices and is subject to such horrific discrimination and repression.
It speaks to the nature of the regime. The professor is right that it is a complicated regime just as all regimes are. Stalin's regime was complicated and so was Hitler's. There are always competing power centres even in the most brutal, totalitarian states. They are not unidimensional, but they have competing power centres because they are mostly very ambitious and arrogant men who seek to accumulate wealth and power at the expense of their competitors.
That's a complex totalitarian system. We all accept that. The fact of the matter is that just because Iran has a complex and brutally authoritarian system doesn't mean that we should lose sight of the fundamental core principles that all of these men subscribe to. Rouhani, Sharif, Rafsanjani, Khatami, Souleimani, Jafari and certainly Khamenei — the names go on — are men who have fundamental differences in tactics and may be competing with each other but they all fundamentally believe in the precepts of the Islamic revolution, the regime, its revolutionary nature abroad and its brutal repression at home.
I think the Baha'i is an indication that they fear disagreement, they fear a different world view, they fear a different set of religious practices and they believe that this is an existential threat to the very raison d'etre to the Islamic Republic of Iran. I think that, until the Baha'is, other religious minorities and women and children are given the human rights and the tolerance that we would expect from every nation, we should be very cautious in engaging with this regime.
I'm very cautious about engagement, which is not to say we shouldn't be engaging in discussions with regimes, no matter how brutal they are. We should be very careful that we maintain leverage because without it, we will be taken to the cleaners by men who are not only brutal, but are also very savvy in how they use instruments of power both domestically and internationally.
The Chair: I'll go on to the other questions, and perhaps you can comment on this particular one. I'd like to move on.
Senator Andreychuk: Perhaps I'll pick up on the point we were debating.
There's been a comment that we should work collectively with Europeans and Americans to strengthen our resolve. But I've also heard in the testimony that the Europeans are engaging and the embassies seem to be, and very appropriately, but it does skew all the human rights issues that you want to deal with when you talk trade.
In fact, the Europeans have an appetite to use less caution in dialogue and the engagement with Iran. Canada in the past has used its leverage with the Europeans, so how do we do that now? They seem to be less cautious than we are. How do we, first of all, say that we come with a united voice? I think that would be stronger.
The second part of my question is: How can we engage now? We had an ambassador for religious issues who was engaged with the UN and the regimes when possible. What lever should we use now? Is it diplomacy, or is there some other aspect? More importantly, how do we engage the Europeans, and particularly Scandinavians, who have led regarding children? How have we allowed the situation of children in Iran to go unnoticed, so that the UN rapporteur had to bring it to our attention very graphically?
You can pick and choose how you wish to answer those. Those are the issues that I've been struggling with and would like to see Canada take initiative on.
Mr. Dubowitz: Senator, thank you for that question. You've really put your finger on what I think is a real opportunity because, as there are competing power centres in Iran, there are also competing power centres within Europe on these questions of engagement versus human rights and on commercial trade versus continuing to hold Iran accountable.
In speaking to your European colleagues, I'm sure you're aware that within every European country there are those who are pro-trade, pro human rights and there are those who are trying to find the right mix. I think when it comes to the Europeans, you'll find many legislators and many officials who remain very concerned about Iranian human rights. It's been reflected in the number of human rights designations and sanctions that the Europeans have imposed. They have actually been far more aggressive and more robust than the Americans have been in actually designating Iranian officials who are responsible for egregious human rights abuses.
There's an opportunity to engage with your European counterparts in the European Parliament, national legislatures and in the executive branches on the issue of human rights designations. That very much plays into the second part of your question, which asks what Canada can do beyond continuing to support the extraordinary work of Dr. Shaheed and continue to shine a spotlight on his track record.
I would, again, recommend that Canada increase the number of human rights designations of Iranian officials, and particularly those who are engaged in egregious abuses against children, the Baha'i community and women.
People somehow think that you can't actually trade with a country and continue to hold them to account for their human rights abuses. The Cold War is certainly evidence of exactly how that was done. We negotiated arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, and yet we had Jackson-Vanik and the Helsinki Process.
A quick story that Professor Cotler told me once is that when Mikhail Gorbachev used to come to the West he initially came as the Minister of Agriculture. Every time he came, he would meet with the Minister of Agriculture in Canada or the Secretary of Agriculture in the United States, and the first item on the agenda was not wheat, it was Natan Sharanksy, the great Soviet dissident. At some point Gorbachev got so sick of hearing about Sharansky every time he showed up in the West that he went back to Moscow, pulled up Sharansky's KGB file and found out that, according to the Soviets, he was a trouble maker but he wasn't worth the effort. They finally let Sharansky go because it was very clear through direct engagement, designations of Soviet officials, specific pieces of legislation that were passed by the U.S. Congress and through the Helsinki Process that the Soviets were not going to be engaged in normalized trade unless they started to address these fundamental human rights and freedoms issues.
I think Canada could take a page from its own Cold War history in how it dealt with the Soviets, in dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Mr. Hassan-Yari: Since the nuclear agreement was signed, you see so many European delegations that compete with each other to go to Tehran. This is not necessarily good news for the Iranians. I say that because, when they go to Iran, some of them here and there raise the question of human rights, but, generally speaking, they are looking for contracts.
So this is why I insist on the importance of collaboration with the Europeans; namely, to remind them that they have obligations, as the Americans for so many years gave assurance to the Iranians that they did not forget the question of human rights if and when they engaged in discussion regarding nuclear issues.
Canada has credibility — credible morality — and, consequently, has to repeatedly remind European allies that, besides trade, there are other things that they have to take into consideration. Trade is extremely important for all countries, including Canada, but human rights should not be sacrificed in favour of trade. I'm afraid that the Europeans are in the process of doing that. So in that sense Canada can coordinate with the Americans and, consequently, jointly talk to the Europeans not to sacrifice the human rights in Iran for the sake of trade.
Senator Martin: Thank you for your presentations today. I feel all the more just how important Iran Accountability Week is and in bringing this to the forefront through this committee. When we talk about the sanctions, I don't see lifting sanctions benefiting the people who would really need the assistance and the kind of human rights infractions that will continue.
If we impose the sanctions, the people, again, suffer. It's this frustrating situation to observe — that this and that can continue the suffering and human rights infractions against the people.
I want to actually bring it right to that level. You talked about the children and how a 9-year-old can be forced into marriage and the political prisoners who are suffering.
In your brief that you submitted — you didn't say this in your presentation, but in your written text, you mentioned that focusing on corruption can be an effective way to promote human rights. I would love to hear more about that and, also, what Canada can do — what Canadians can do — on that level, perhaps shedding light on the human stories that will bring attention from the world community. And perhaps social media is another piece.
My question on that is whether there is a total censorship — a great attempt to censor what the people are hearing — and what movement there may be on the ground from the people themselves as they're hearing about some of the terrible stories that they must be aware of that are happening in their own country.
I'd love to hear more about those two items from either of the presenters today.
Mr. Dubowitz: Thank you for reminding me about this issue of corruption and kleptocracy. For the benefit of the other senators, I did submit written testimony, which unfortunately is quite long and I haven't had the opportunity to cover it all.
But the issue of corruption and kleptocracy is critically important. In any of these authoritarian regimes, the men who control these regimes often are incredibly corrupt, and corruption is certainly a way to control regimes and people and have the funds to actually engage in these kinds of nefarious activities.
As I mentioned, the problem right now on the issue of sanctions and economic engagement is that you are engaging with an incredibly corrupt regime and a regime that controls the wealth of Iran through the Revolutionary Guard, the supreme leader, his holding company and through various instruments of the regime. So, essentially, you're engaging with crooks and thieves.
I don't know if the professor would agree with me on this, but there may be widespread disagreement in Iran about the nuclear agreement and Iran's ballistic missile tests, and there may be differences of opinion with respect to whether Hezbollah or Hamas are terrorist organizations. I'm sure there is great disagreement in Iran on all these issues.
I would venture a guess that, on the issue of corruption, most Iranians agree that their leaders are crooks and thieves and that they have been stealing the wealth of Iran for decades. Again, Iran is an incredibly wealthy country. It has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world. It's an incredibly wealthy country — a country that, even before sanctions, had its wealth stolen by this regime.
By highlighting the crooks and thieves in the regime, and by ensuring the Canadian businesses are not doing business with the crooks and thieves in the regime, this could be not only an incredibly important tool of economic leverage, but a very important tool of human rights leverage — and to make corruption and kleptocracy a human rights issue and not just an economic issue.
The Chair: I'd like to get the last two senators' questions in.
Senator Omidvar: I have a personal connection with this. I became Iranian by marriage and lived in Iran for five years. I escaped in 1981; I was one of the fortunate ones. When you talk about Evin Prison — and it was always under either the Iranian Imperial Guard or the Revolutionary Guard — it still sends shivers up and down my spine.
Today in Canada, there are hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have become contributing Canadians. Many of them are Bahá'í, but many more are Muslims who fled.
What is the involvement or the position of the Iranian diaspora in Canada? What's their engagement on this? Because I do know that they are travelling freely back and forth, and I'm curious about their position and their influence on this matter.
The Chair: Senator Ngo, could you get your question in, as well, please.
Senator Ngo: Thank you both of you.
My question is most probably answered, but I would like to raise it again, because you say that some countries continue to sign trade deals with Iran. And we know that Iran's economy is controlled by supreme leaders or the Revolutionary Guard. Some European countries still continue to sign trade deals with Iran, with the worst human rights violations in the world. Why do these countries continue to do that? Maybe they are naive or pretend to be naive.
The Chair: Let's get an answer to the first question; I don't want to lose the question on those from Iran who are living in this country, and also your question, Senator Ngo. I'd like to go with the professor first.
Mr. Hassan-Yari: Very quickly, regarding corruption, just a few days ago, the judiciary system itself announced that 175 judges will be dismissed because of corruption. There are so many other cases, though I don't want to take your time to repeat those things. But it is related to addressing the question of corruption by engaging economically with Iran.
With regard to the question of Senator Omidvar, I believe that the Iranian diaspora, in general, in Canada — maybe in particular — are interested in engaging with the Iranian people and ultimately with the Iranian regime, because after all, the control of the situation is in the hands of the state and not necessarily the people in their own democratic countries.
The Iranian community, in Canada in particular, suffered immensely because of the situation of the embassy for administration-related issues, documentation and all the things related to those. So I think they would not be unhappy to see engagement with Iran, but, again, under some conditions. They are influential; we can see that inside of Iran when they go to Iran. For example, when those who are teaching in Canada, the U.S. and other countries are invited by universities in Iran, they go there. You see how eager the students are to hear from them. And that is gradually influencing the public opinion in Iran.
As for the question of why Europeans do what they do, that might be their choice. Europe is not, unfortunately, in a very great situation nowadays in terms of a number of issues, including refugees but also financial, economic and so forth. It doesn't mean that Europeans should engage with Iranian state in general without any condition. You can do that. Iran is a net importer. Iran depends on the international market to feed its own people. The days when Iran was a great producer of agriculture, for example, are gone.
Now there is a leverage that Western countries and people can use in order to help improve the human rights questions.
The Chair: We have three minutes. Mr. Dubowitz, you have the last word.
Mr. Dubowitz: I would summarize by saying that there's a lot of talk about engagement, but engagement is not some magic wand that you wave that wipes clean Iran's malign activities. It's not going to help the young woman who is being tortured and raped in the basement of Evin Prison and the young child who is on death row for trumped-up, falsified charges. It's not going to help the Bahá'í community that is systemically discriminated against and repressed. Engagement merely means "I'm having a dialogue with my adversary.''
What the regime has done, which I think has been very clever, is they've used dialogue, particularly with the Europeans but also the United States, to try to create a pathway to legitimacy without actually having to come clean on their decades-long rap sheet of criminality, whether it's nuclear mendacity, their illicit financial activities and, particularly germane to this hearing, their decades-long rap sheet of human rights crimes.
If we're going to engage in any way, we should return to the theme of this week, which is accountability, and hold this regime accountable for its systematic human rights abuses and use the instruments of national power, in this case, the use of sanctions, to designate the individuals, institutions and entities of the Iranian regime that are responsible for the vast system of domestic repression, most notably the Revolutionary Guard, to use Canadian law to designate them as a threat to international security and to SEMA for that vast system of human rights abuses.
The Chair: With that, if there's one word we heard consistently this morning, it is the word "caution.'' I think that's the watch-word of the day.
I want to thank you both for appearing.
This is Iranian Accountability Week, and we had the first hour of this meeting with Professor Houchang Hassan- Yari and Marc Dubowitz. We have been informed of some of the serious issues that are still going on in that country. As members of the Senate Human Rights Committee in this country, we have an obligation to speak and to lend our voices to some of the very serious human rights abuses that are taking place in Iran.
In our second panel today, we're pleased to welcome via video conference, from Geneva, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Doctor, you have the floor. As you probably heard, we'll be open to asking lots of questions after. Thank you.
Ahmed Shaheed, PhD, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, United Nations: Chair, deputy chair Senator Salma Ataullahjan, honourable senators, and ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for inviting me to appear before this distinguished committee via video conferencing. Allow me to say at the start that I have been a great admirer of Canada's contribution to the promotion of international human rights law — in its numerous contexts — over a long period.
In 2011, when I began my UN mandate, Iran's level of cooperation with the UN human rights mechanisms was arguably at an all-time low. Iran was still reeling from the effects of its biggest post-revolution crisis, the post-2009 election protests, which led to the death of peaceful protesters at the hands of security forces, and thousands of arrests and convictions following unfair trials.
The experience appeared to have emboldened the hardline stance against engagement or, as I call it, interference from the UN or the general community in the name of "human rights.'' The UN special procedures had been denied country access for over six years at that time, this fight of standing invitation issued by Iran pledging to allow all special procedures at the request to visit the country. Iran also had the largest number of unanswered communications queries from the UN issued by the UN special procedures.
Despite being a party to five international human rights treaties, Iran had not undergone a review by a relevant treaty body in years. At the start of my mandate, the government rarely addressed the allegations in my reports with information that was based on facts and instead chose to dismiss my reports as "propaganda and lies.''
Now, almost six years later, we can look to a record of cooperation with UN rights bodies and mechanisms, and acknowledge that Iran has, indeed, made some progress towards engagement on this front. It has invited two thematic mandates to visit the country in the coming months, undergone reviews by three treaty bodies and has submitted to a review by a fourth treaty body next year. Its rate of response to UN communications has also increased slightly, including to that of my own.
In fact, over the past five years the government's quality of responses to my reports have dramatically improved and now include substantive information regarding specific allegations raised in them. In addition, the Iranian authorities meet me regularly in New York and Geneva and have increasingly arranged meetings with other key stakeholders, including judges, security forces and members of civil society who come out to see me in Geneva or New York.
I firmly believe that the current course of action taken by the international community has contributed to Iran's reorientation. This includes the UN resolution on Iran, first tabled by Canada in 2003, after the torture and murder in an Iranian jail of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi and the Human Rights Commission's return of Iran to the agenda in 2011. Both initiatives have played a unique and vital role in encouraging the authorities in Iran to increase their cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms.
Without doubt, some of this progress in cooperation is the result of internal political changes in the country, including the election of President Hassan Rouhani and an administration that has put re-engagement with the world at the top of its agenda.
But in my mind, international focus on Iran's human rights record has also played an important role in the government's change in behaviour. After all, Iran is a country that cares about its reputation, and I believe the price of non-cooperation became too high to be acceptable for government officials keen on re-engaging with the outside world.
Most particularly, when it became obvious to government officials that non-cooperation with my mandate would not prevent me or the UN Secretary-General from publishing detailed reports documenting serious rights violations in the country, I believe cooler heads prevailed and decided to advance a policy of engagement with the UN mechanisms, even if it was simply to have their side of the story covered in the reports.
Even if, as some say, this change is as a result of moderates convincing hard-liners in Iran that it needs to engage in mechanisms in order to ultimately convince the world that they no longer needed to keep the focus on Iran. In my view, it is indisputable that pressure and focus on Iran have resulted in a change in behaviour, and this change can save lives.
Last year, 70 members of Parliament presented a bill that, if approved by the Parliament and the Guardian Council, would reduce the punishment of non-violent drug offences from death to life imprisonment. If this bill becomes law, it could reduce the execution rate in the country by as much as 75 to 80 per cent. Officials, including judges who had sentenced non-violent drug offenders to death, cited the increasing number of UN criticisms regarding the execution of drug offenders as a reason why it was time for them to rethink the use of the death penalty in Iran.
The world needs to continue supporting these mechanisms, because we have not yet seen demonstrable and concrete improvement in the human rights situation on the ground in the country. Although I applaud the government's increasing engagement with my mandate, I note that Tehran still refuses to allow me into the country to carry out my work. Perhaps more troubling, individuals in the country who the government believes have cooperated with my mandate are often targets of government reprisals. And although review agencies have been asked to visit Iran, Iran continues to ignore repeated requests for country access from various mechanisms trying to visit Iran for the past 13 years to document pressing rights violations.
Iran also refused to accept a vast majority of recommendations that member states proposed at the UPR that covered civil and political rights in the country.
More importantly, the human rights situation on the ground is quite serious and continues to require attention. In my latest address to the Human Rights Council, I underlined some very real challenges that Iran faces and which must be addressed if we are to see an improvement in the country's human rights situation. For example, my latest report contained information regarding a wide variety of officials, such as the staggering surge in executions in the country to nearly 1,000 last year, which is the highest in over two decades; discriminatory practices against women and girls; the government continues to execute juveniles; problems persist with regard to the administration of justice; minorities, including religious and ethnic minorities, face prosecution and persecution; and journalists also face capricious treatment by the government for the abuse of human rights.
In short, much work remains ahead. I don't believe that now is a time to divert attention from Iran's human rights record or abandon support for human rights mechanisms that have been invested in and have produced some results to date.
We must not forget the sins of the past. 2002 was the year in which the mandate of the previous rapporteur, Professor Maurice Copithorne, from Canada was not renewed. At that time, a reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, had just begun his second term and began the dialogue on human rights, and there was much hope that there could be a change undergone in the country, but this did not happen.
Hard-liners in Iran, increasingly frustrated by Khatami's reforms and the political openness that characterized his first four years quickly evaporated. By 2005, the U.S. dialogue ended Iran's top granting accessible procedures, and the environment became ripe for serious rights abuses that security forces and the judiciary were perpetrating.
And today, as we consider the future engagement with Iran, we must reflect on that past. We must encourage accountability by applauding progress and admonishing non-compliance.
I believe that now more than ever it is time, in my view, for Canada and the world community to work hand in hand to find effective and creative ways to engage with Iran on human rights as they look to broaden their political and cultural links with the outside world. Increasing engagement with Iran and continuing focus on human rights are not, in my view, mutually exclusive realities.
As I said before, Iran's re-engagement with the world provides a golden opportunity not just to reach out to world leaders but also for businesses to seek to invest in Iran to play their part in ensuring that they also contribute to improving human rights in the country.
Before I conclude, please allow me to thank this distinguished committee for this opportunity. Let me also record my appreciation for your support and other governments in the past five years. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Shaheed.
This afternoon in our Senate of Canada we will be speaking even more about some of the specific issues in Iran and talking about certain individuals who have been imprisoned unjustly as a Senate of Canada. So we're going to be sending that message as well.
Our lead on this particular one-day special hearing dealing with Iran Accountability Week is Senator Linda Frum.
Senator Frum: Thank you very much, chair, and thank you very much, Dr. Shaheed, for joining us and the extremely important work that you do. It's very inspiring.
You said so many things and we have much to talk about. One thing you said that intrigued me, I believe you said that Iran cares about its reputation. We are dealing with a state sponsor of terror, a country with the highest per capita level of executions, and a country that murders juvenile prisoners, et cetera. As the chair has said we're going to be engaged in an inquiry this afternoon in the Senate highlighting the cases of specific political prisoners. The dilemma always is, when you focus on prisoners, are you going to make their lives more difficult by speaking about them, or are you going to help them?
I suppose part of that calculation is based on whether Iran cares about what other countries think about it. You said it does care about its reputation. So can you help me better understand what the context for them caring about their reputation is?
Mr. Shaheed: If I may answer.
What I meant was that Iran likes to be seen as a leader in the non-aligned movement, a leader in the global south. It runs for various UN posts, like the Human Rights Council on two occasions, and other UN offices which require them to have support within the global south.
It is very concerned when countries it considers as friends in the global south express concern about what it does. They are also concerned when there is widespread condemnation of its behaviour.
They are also concerned when its own people begin to see a discrepancy between what the government is portraying as their situation in the world and what they see in terms of what's happening.
I'll give you some concrete examples here. A couple of years ago there was a case of a Christian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, who was accused of being in a false state and also violating the country's laws, and he was facing the death penalty at that time. This was obviously quite an egregious situation, and appropriately in the council debate at the time a lot of countries, numerous countries expressed their outrage, condemnation, disquiet, as the case may be on this subject, including from the global south as well.
So in the debate Iran felt so flustered by this criticism that it said, "Well, you're all wrong, we do not do this in our country.'' And, of course, having denied that was the case, they went back and actually released him.
So he was saved from imminent death, although it was on that occasion that they detained his lawyer on a trumped- up charge, but then had him released as well.
So there are many such cases when there is public criticism that Iran cannot dismiss this as the usual sort of countries saying so. For them, I think the EU and the U.S. might appear to be the usual countries, but when it reaches a much wider chorus of condemnation, then they are concerned about it.
On the flip side, there was one particular case, a young woman called Reyhaneh Jabbari who, in my view, was unfairly convicted and was put to death without a proper trial. She was accused of having killed somebody who was a Revolutionary Guard member. Her defence was that he was trying to rape her, and it was self-defence.
In my view, the trial didn't look at all the relevant facts, and there was a huge campaign, rightly so, expressing disquiet about this issue and seeking her reprieve. But Iran said, well, they killed her because we had painted the deceased as a rapist and therefore under the law the deceased family could not pardon her. But I would say that Reyhaneh Jabbari refused to apologize for this, and thereby maintained that the campaign that we ran was valid and the blood is on Iran's hands, not anybody else.
My bottom line here is, senator, that when a person's case is documented, when a person's case is spoken about in the outside world, does that person feels safer? They tell me they do; it is documented and spoken about.
Senator Frum: That's good to hear. You mentioned that in your position as Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, you actually are not permitted to enter Iran. And further, the people who do help you with your work have been targeted for reprisal. So just to help us understand better how you are able to do the work that you do, how does it even happen?
Mr. Shaheed: Well, senator, in our 21st century I rely a lot on technology, and I think I can do my work a lot safer than if I were to go the country. If I were to go there, of course, people would come to see me and would be exposed and visible, as Professor Copithorne found when he had last been there.
So I used secure platforms to speak to people undetected. I've conducted about 700 interviews in my past five years, the bulk of it by Skype, a third of it with people in the country. And I have a very, very safe record of this.
And those the government believes may have spoken to me, I'm happy to say that only maybe one or two who breached the protocols may have been discovered, but the rest have been safe.
Besides that, Iran does produce a lot of information about itself. There are a number of public executions which are reported. Almost all executions are in some form or other reported. And please read my report on the high amount of child murderers drawn from government data and reports. The debates in Parliament are on the public record.
So there is a lot of information available out there which I can use, although I would say a visit to the country, to the prison, to meet people on the ground is still something that's required for me to be more effective.
Senator Frum: Thank you, doctor.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you, Mr. Shaheed.
I was just going through your statements before the United Nations Human Rights Council where you wanted to highlight, "The increasing cooperation being extended to my mandate by the Iranian government, giving me access in Geneva to key actors and stakeholders from Iran whose functions have a direct impact on the realization of human rights on the ground.''
I attend a lot of conferences where there are delegations from Iran, and I know that every year in October we have the IPU conference where Iran normally does have a huge delegation. Are you ever given access to that delegation?
Further, in your report where you do say that they extend cooperation to you, you also speak of the denial of adequate medical treatment to political prisoners, you speak of unlawful executions in the country, 966 people, 73 juveniles were executed between 2005 and 2015, another 160 are awaiting the same fate.
So while they are willing to talk to you and show a willingness to talk to you, we're not seeing anything change. That's my understanding from your statement. In fact, if anything, it's getting worse on the ground. Would you like to comment on that?
Mr. Shaheed: Thank you, senator. I agree with your final statement that things are getting worse in some areas, in key areas, even while we speak of signs or signals of positive change in some areas.
No, I have not been able to meet the IPU delegation of Iran, but I have been able to meet some MPs who have come to Geneva either in the context of IPU or other visits.
What I meant by being able to meet stakeholders, I meant judges, lawyers, people dealing with these security forces. I rarely have contact beyond the diplomats. Diplomats have a refined language that is very polished but doesn't get to the issue.
When I speak to the judges, the prosecutors, the people dealing with the security forces, I can try to understand from them directly what their real concerns are and perhaps try to look at the issue. I'm not saying that I have made much progress, but the fact that I'm able to speak directly to these people is something I do value.
If I can sustain a dialogue with these communities, there is the potential to make some progress which I could not make simply by speaking to diplomats in Geneva or the foreign office.
I am happy you noted these very serious issues that I have raised in my report. They require attention because executions have been rising, and in my last report it was the key message that I had, that it was really unacceptable, including the very high surge in executions throughout. But I also noted at that time a lot of noise made between October last year, when there was the resolution in their assembly, and the end of March this year, when it seemed Iran was very serious about this bill in Parliament, about amending the law on the death penalty which could reduce that.
I have not heard much of that in the last 30 days, but I'm hoping that once the new Parliament starts meeting later this month, with the majority now favouring, either moderates or reformists or independents, that President Rouhani now has the numbers that he would need to have such a bill passed through.
The bottom line is there are very serious concerns out there. I have not seen a change since President Rouhani came into office, but issues of serious concern have continued ever since.
Senator Andreychuk: Thank you very much, Dr. Shaheed, for your work. Your reports are read in Canada and the part that caught me was the child marriages. Just at a time when other countries who used to use the same excuses to allow these young marriages on a cultural or religious basis are now saying no, that the gender issue is important to them, we see Iran moving the other way.
You get responses from Europe and you get responses from Canada and the United States. Is the rest of the world getting engaged and focusing on Iran, or are we still the voices that you hear from?
Mr. Shaheed: Thank you, a very useful question, senator.
Canada is the leader on the subject, and I want to thank you and note that. But other countries have also understood that the recent other developments around Iran, including the nuclear file and the rest of it, doesn't warrant taking eyes off the country.
I do sense a lot of support through the work I do. I support the work of other people who are monitoring Iran as well. That understanding is there. However, the focus in Iran tends to get drowned out by other concerns in the region or elsewhere. So that's why in my statement I stress that we should not be diverting our focus because things still aren't quite right there.
In regard to child marriages, senator, Iran actually doesn't compare to anybody else in terms of scale or the ages we are talking about. In the report I did two years ago, I was talking about girls below 10 being married off with the judge's consent, and I was reporting actual incidents, 2,000 within a space of one year in certain localities, where it's happened, and all government documented data. And as things currently stand, for boys the age of majority is 15, girls is 13, but for marriage it can be as low as 9 with the judge's consent.
And what I have reported is that of all the marriages that I had documented, about 90 per cent had their first baby by the time the girl reached 15. So this doesn't really have comparison with anywhere else in the world.
The same applies to the death penalty. If you look at the practice elsewhere, they are also quite serious, but the number in Iran is way ahead of everybody else. So the order of concern with regard to Iran remains far more serious than any of the other states which should have age of majority issue based on sharia law or whatever else they may be citing.
Senator Andreychuk: A quick follow-up on that.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed universally but for two countries, and Iran signed on and ratified.
There is a review mechanism on the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Are your reports used there, and have you brought this to their attention to say how urgent this matter is for young women, their health and their situation?
Part of my question is, is there a difference between the urban population and the rural areas of Iran, and how do we get information into the areas that need most to understand the linkage between early marriage and the health of the mother and the health of the baby, et cetera?
Mr. Shaheed: Thank you, Senator. The first answer is yes, I gave evidence to the treaty bodies reviewing of Iran, and I did make submissions to the Convention on the Rights of the Child when they reviewed Iran.
Iran has a reservation, a blanket reservation to the convention, which states that it will only enforce the convention insofar as compulsory sharia law, so it is not clear what their scope or limitation is. In my view, that is an illegal reservation because it doesn't meet the tests under international law.
So, therefore, that is that issue. The committee has raised this concern with Iran, but, as you know, the effectiveness of these concerns is something that can be questioned.
Yes, there is a difference between rural and urban population in terms of the rights situation of people, including the children situation. I was able to find some kind of link between the rise in the number of child marriages and the country's economic situation. The argument, not scientific but anecdotal, was based on that early marriage was driven by parental need to marry their daughters to a wealthy family or in some manner try to address their situation at that time.
It is difficult to get word across to the rural areas. One mechanism would be the UN development team in the country. Unfortunately, despite a lot of noise they have been making of what they could do as a team, the last UN cooperation framework signed a couple of months ago does not contain human rights as part of the program.
These, sadly, are missed opportunities because they have a presence on the ground, they work with communities elsewhere, and I am lost for words as to why the UN would still not take this fight for human rights and other legitimate issues that are out there.
Senator Andreychuk: Thank you for that last point. I certainly wasn't aware of that, and I think our committee should take note of that, if we're supporting UN initiatives, particularly human rights, that it would be absent. Thank you, Dr. Shaheed, for bringing that to our attention.
Senator Cordy: This has been a most interesting dialogue with you this morning.
Are there any people within the country's institutions that are trying to make a difference, that are trying to make changes to have better human rights within the system and make it less corrupt? I'm speaking specifically about the justice system, but any of the institutions. A general answer would be good on that.
We know that the treatment of prisoners is abysmal. We know that there are a high number of prisoners who are executed. We know there are a high number of prisoners who are dying within the prisons, because they are not being cared for and because of overcrowding. We know that there's a high number of youth in the prisons, and young people are being executed.
Yet we heard from a previous witness that 175 judges were let go because of corruption. If we hear 175 judges are let go because of corruption, would that lead one to believe that there must be some judges who are not corrupt and who are within the system trying to do a good job?
Are there any moderates within the government itself? Are there any members of government who are trying to make a change from within? Because it appears from what I've heard this morning, both from you and others, that the average Iranian person really has little control over what's going on, so those who do have the power, are any trying to make a difference?
Mr. Shaheed: Iran has a very complex constitution. One part is quite democratic but the autocrats suppress everything. They have a Parliament for which there are elections, and we've seen over the decades that the conservatives lose their control of it to moderates and reformists.
What happens, however, is that the laws they pass need to be endorsed by a Guardian Council of six jurists and six lawyers appointed by the supreme leader, essentially. In the past, they have blocked reformist legislation that would have made a difference in the ordinary lives of the people. I think they will continue to do that. So there is only so far the reformists in Parliament can go. The other voices in Parliament that are moderate and understand the need to have a better order in the country which would contribute to social flourishing.
I can also mention individual names. The vice-president for Women and Family Affairs Ms. Molaverdi, has been a rare voice in the country, speaking out against various issues that undermine women's rights. There's a huge disconnect between denying women's educational achievements and their roles in society and in the economy. She's been a very loud voice on measures against that.
Two months ago, she said that the drug policy in the country has been so tragic that there are villages where all the adult males have been put to death. She's under pressure from the hard-liners for her statements like this. She is labelled as an agent of the outside world and so on and so forth.
But the point is that Iran is quite poli-centric. There are many voices, by any definition of the word. But then, because the supreme leader's office has such widespread power in the system and elsewhere, that these are held in check.
If there is sustained pressure and focus on the country, the internal discourse that can then be there will make these other people uncomfortable.
Yes, there are judges who are seen to be more or less like those in other countries, but there are those in the secular courts but there are also revolutionary courts in which we hear of so many trials, we hear of fairly low standards of due process being applied. So it's a mixed range.
The problem is that this overarching control by the supreme leader and his team of people that report to him over the system — that can't be democratic if there's a different interpretation of laws and a different practice that gives space to these people to express themselves.
Iranian people, by and large, are highly educated, sophisticated and are demanding rights wherever and whenever they can. If they have a real voice, then you would have a very different Iran when they have more ability to express their voices.
We have at any given time about 40 journalists imprisoned in Iran. It's a changing group but about that number is there. Iran is the seventh worst in the world on press freedom indices, and therefore with a draconian press law that has content including material offences to the Supreme Leader, there is no space in the country for people to express their views that are critical of the government.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much for that detailed answer.
We hear conflicting information about whether we should engage politically with Iran as a country or whether we should not engage. Those who say we should, say we will only move forward if we speak to the country and we have an embassy there and get engaged. Others are saying that engagement is still not doing much for those who are most in need and those who are being abused within the country.
You spoke about shining a light on Iran and what's going on there, and that shining a light will actually lead to change, or perhaps would allow changes to be done.
Do we shine a light on Iran and the horrendous things that are happening there by being engaged with the government or not being engaged and doing it from the outside?
Mr. Shaheed: I've been posed that question several times, and in my view, it depends on how you engage with the country. Engagement has something going for it, because it allows more information, more transparency, more access and better opportunities to perhaps make one's views known. But if it comes at the expense of certain core rights situations, then it's a problem.
If there was a trade-off between, say, a quiet dialogue and speaking out on a bad situation, then I think that doesn't work. But if engagement is an additional channel that can advance human rights, then there is value in that.
What I would find distressing would be if there were no longer the case for public criticism, because there is a quiet dialogue going on that no one knows anything about. The quiet dialogues have not proven very effective in most contexts. I don't think there would be any difference in Iran, either. It simply demoralizes the human rights defenders, because they are no longer spoken of, they don't even know what is going on. The government, in the meantime, will be quite happy to bask in the limelight.
So the issue is how do you actually engage? If you can benchmark and identify core issues to be addressed and proceed in that fashion, having more chance of communication would be a benefit. So long as it will come at the expense of other actions that are being taken to address the issues.
Senator Martin: Dr. Shaheed, thank you. This is definitely most educational and intriguing, and I have so many questions.
My first question is regarding the stakeholders that you have had the opportunity to meet with since being designated special rapporteur. You mentioned judges and other professionals groups. You mentioned a woman — an advocate working for women's rights. I'm wondering about humanitarian workers. Although it's a very rich country, there still is need for groups that may be on the ground working — maybe the International Red Cross.
In your process of extracting facts and information for your reports, how do you really check the authenticity of such information when you're talking to people who have been sent and they have the approval of the government or when the regime is aware of these individuals talking to you?
I don't know if you're able to talk about the process and how these interviews or sessions might take place. I'm very curious about that.
I would think that you, being a special rapporteur, and us looking at an international approach as Canadians that it would be important for you to have complete access in the work that you do. That would reassure all of us that the changes that are happening are indeed happening. Would you speak to the process and how you authenticate information and the different types of groups you have had a chance to speak to?
Mr. Shaheed: I agree with you, senator, that a visit by me to the country would enable me to do a lot more than I'm doing right now. It will enable me to not only inspect things on the ground as a firsthand witness and but also enable me to build relationships with various stakeholders who may be important partners moving forward.
Right now, if I only meet people that they bring to me, I don't have the opportunity to meet other people to build relationships, which are vital for the long-term engagement within any country.
In terms of the process, I don't rely on any one source. The government information comes to me in relative formats. I always look at how constant they are with other known facts.
For example, when I have a report published, I have to pass the draft off for a fact check because there may be information that I didn't have, which may be in my case inaccurate. Their practice is to write me a new report. My report is 10,000 words. That doesn't mean a 15,000-word report of their own, reporting each of my para, para by para, as it were.
In that there's an occasion to see if I have got my facts wrong, it is very rarely so. There's a chance to fact check data, which I need to cross-reference with information I have from other sources. But if there is a dispute as to what's being said, then obviously I have to judge in my view what is the truth. I don't require information beyond a reasonable doubt. That would be too high a standard. The standard is on balance of facts does it look probable. So if that is the case, then I'm happy to use that information.
Iran has had a very active diaspora for a long time monitoring what's happening in the country. For example, on death penalty, there are Iranian groups outside the country who have been monitoring what's happening in the press. They observe local press reports, they observer other local notices, collect the information and have a tally of what's happened where.
And I use that where it can be corroborated by other sources. I never rely on one source. I need to have it effectively corroborated to ensure that I don't trip on government's, if you like, especially the past, misinformation. As an example, I collected information saying there was a stoning of a woman in a village in Iran one year back. If I had taken this at face value and made an issue of it, they would say, "No, it's never happened,'' and I would be exposed for not checking my material.
But having fact checked this across many sources, I can filter out information that doesn't appear to be valid. So over about 10 reports now I have been able to ensure that my information is right by looking at this number of sources, and I also make sure that I look at reliable sources. I filter out any source which may have a public, political agenda, so if it's a politically motivated group, I take the information with a grain of salt. So I have to be careful that I have information that is valid.
Once you speak with about 700 people in the country, you get a good sense of where things are. I think it's successfully developed by the work in the country over time to get to know and have reliable sources.
I think I have answered the questions you have posed, unless I have left something out.
Senator Martin: Looking at the time, I'm fine with the answers you've provided.
The other question was regarding the other stakeholder groups beyond judges and professional groups, but I will look at some of the reports that you've written to get that myself.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you very much for that very insightful report. You noted that Iranians are highly educated, and that is true, especially in urban Iran. Both men and women go to university, partly because they have nothing else to do. They have no jobs.
But this has also resulted in a renaissance of voice and expression, and in many cases in the world — in our history in the world — repressive and authoritarian regimes have been overthrown by a mixture of hard power and soft power. And I think about the artistic and intellectual expression coming out of Iran — the music, the literature, poetry — which is finding its way out into the world and being recognized.
Do you see this as a companion instrument to the work that you are doing? Is it being deployed maybe not in your department but in other institutions in the UN to help Iranians find voice and give expression to their own form of freedom?
Mr. Shaheed: The short answer is no. The UN doesn't have the cubbyhole to address that. But I recognize the value and importance of that.
There is a marked difference between Iran society and many of its neighbours because of the potential there for its men and women to speak out artistically and otherwise.
In fact, one reason why I took on the mandate as a Maldivian was that Iran actually has the potential to produce that discourse in Islam itself, to achieve a more moderate human rights friendly perspective. Most Iranian intellectuals have a discourse that could actually bring into Islam a more refined humanistic perspective.
Within Iran too there are those who use intellectual and artistic expression to create this social discourse that can create a more liberating perspective for everybody.
So it's a very important point but an underused tool. I think it would be very good to focus on that as a way forward to create more space for people to be free.
Senator Omidvar: I've read somewhere that proportionally there is no other community in the world other than young Iranians who have taken so fiercely to social media and Twitter as a form of expression, and that's been left out of these discussions. Perhaps that's for another day.
Senator Ngo: Thank you, Dr. Shaheed. There has been a widening crackdown on freedom of expression and freedom of religion. According to your report, the use of the death penalty, including for juveniles, in Iran has drastically risen in 2015, with significantly more executions than in previous years.
How would you describe the best way for Canada to respond to this kind of action, as well as for Canada to advance human rights with severe human rights record violators such as Iran?
Mr. Shaheed: I think the resolution in New York remains the most important point of international engagement with Iran, where the world's concerns on key core issues are highlighted. There is no other platform for doing so. The human rights council can't do it because the numbers are so thin that some resolution will not get through. That remains a vital tool by which to highlight core concerns about core issues like this.
I would think it's very important for Iran that these sort of behaviors cannot be accepted. There are certain issues on which they need to move very rapidly, and this includes respect for right to life, which has a very low regard in the country at the present time.
Senator Ataullahjan: I had a two-part question. One was what Senator Omidvar asked, which was: What role does social media play in Iran, if any at all, like we saw in the Middle East? And the other was: What are some of the crimes for which children under the age of 18 are executed?
Mr. Shaheed: The short answer was the latter one. It's mostly for homicide, missiles, although occasionally using a weapon in a robbery. So these are the key offences for which minors are put to death.
In terms of social media, it is a very vital tool. As the senator pointed out, Iran has a high rate of penetration of the Internet, as well as use of social media.
When I present my reports at the UN, they often carry out a live feed translation in Persian. One reason why the government responds so harshly to my reports is that the discussion gets into the society and the streets through various means, and there is a discourse in the country with organized people. There's a lot of potential to use social media to energize the community, to get this cause going on, to get them empowered, networked and become a resource.
I should say there is annually if you look at various IT conventions, there is always a big platform or a big section on Iran because they are often leading this organization or have a huge population that will use that.
So that is an important area to focus on, which has a potential to have multiple benefits for the people of Iran.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you.
The Chair: Dr. Shaheed, we want to thank you very much. You've certainly added to our special one-day hearing on Iran Accountability Week. It is a two-way dialogue. We will be putting out a news release within the next 24 hours because this committee likes to work in real time, and we sincerely hope once you see our release and your testimony, along with the testimony earlier today, it may add to the conversation and to your special rapporteur work in Geneva and elsewhere. And we hope one day soon that you can get into Iran and get on the ground. I mean, that's where the story obviously is.
Thank you very much, and we'll talk soon.
Mr. Shaheed: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
The Chair: Senators, we'll adjourn and the steering committee will stick around. Thanks.
(The committee adjourned.)