On motion of Irwin Cotler, it was agreed, — That, whereas, the Subcommittee has heard compelling testimony regarding the deteriorating crisis in human rights in Ahmadinejad’s Iran, including:
- Iran is engaged in widespread and systematic assaults on the human rights of its own people, including a state-orchestrated wave of arrests, detentions, beatings, torture, disappearances, and executions;
- The rate of executions in Iran continues to escalate in 2012, and Iran has executed more people per capita than any other country in the world;
- Iran has imprisoned more journalists and bloggers than any other country in the world;
- Iran continues to target and imprison the lawyers of victims of human rights violations;
- The persecution and prosecution of the Baha’i community has intensified.
Be it resolved that:
- The Subcommittee condemn the systematic and widespread state-sanctioned assaults on the human rights of the Iranian people constitutive of crimes against humanity;
- Iran cease and desist from its state-orchestrated policy of wanton executions;
- Iran release its political prisoners, including the seven imprisoned Baha’i and ethnic Kurds and other members of targeted minorities, including Christians Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, convicted of apostasy for abandoning Islam;
- Iran cease and desist from its arrest and imprisonment of lawyers for no other reason than that they have defended victims of human rights violations;
- Iran cease and desist from its persistent and pervasive assaults on the rights of women, including also cruel and inhumane treatment and punishment such as stoning;
- The Government of Canada sanction the major human rights violators responsible for the ordering of, and complicity in, the wanton executions and massive assaults on human rights, and put them on notice that they will be held accountable before the law.
In particular, be it resolved that:
- The Subcommittee calls for the immediate release and dropping of all charges in the cases of Iranian-Canadians Saeed Malekpour and Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, who are both under imminent threat of execution, and who should be allowed to return to Canada on humanitarian grounds;
- The Subcommittee refers the subject of human rights in Iran to the Foreign Affairs Committee and recommends that it endorse this resolution and, in particular, adopt a statement in the matter of Saeed Malekpour and Hamid Ghassemi-Shall.