SDIR Committee News Release
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Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development |
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Sous-comité des droits internationaux de la personne du Comité permanent des affaires étrangères et du développement international |
For immediate release
NEWS RELEASE
HOUSE OF COMMONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CONDEMNS PERSISTENT VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE IRANIAN PEOPLE
Ottawa, June 11, 2013 -
After hearing timely and compelling testimony from witnesses regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran in the run-up to the June 2013 presidential elections, on 30 May 2013, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development adopted the following motion:
Be it resolved that the Subcommittee:
- Condemn the systematic and widespread state-sanctioned assaults on the human rights of the Iranian people – and particularly the leaders of civil society – as constitutive of crimes against humanity;
- Call upon Iran to cease and desist from its state-orchestrated policy of wanton executions;
- Urge Iran to release its political prisoners, particularly the seven imprisoned Baha’i leaders, whose twenty year sentence at their advanced age is a virtual death sentence;
- Call upon Iran to cease and desist from its arrest and imprisonment of lawyers for no other reason than that they have defended victims of human rights violations;
- Urge Iran to 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 and flogging;
- Support targeted sanctions against 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 refers the situation of human rights violations in Iran to the Foreign Affairs Committee and recommends that it endorse this resolution.
“Two years after the Subcommittee completed its systematic review of the Human Rights Situation in Iran, the situation remains grave”, said Chair, Scott Reid.
Irwin Cotler vice Chair of the Sub-Committee, who moved the motion said: ‘’with this motion we send a message that we stand with the people of Iran, let them know they are not alone and that the regime will be held to account”.
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