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NCRI – The former Canadian Justice Minister, Hon. Irwin Cotler, gave a speech on August 20, at the Toronto Old City Hall. He said that this meeting, held on the anniversary of the massacre of an estimated 30,000 political prisoners, was to tell the supporters of liberty and democracy in Iran that he and his colleagues in the Canadian Parliament co-sponsored a resolution. He read part of this resolution:<\/p>\n
\u201cThat this house condemns the mass murder of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 as a crime against humanity, honors the memory of the victims buries in mass graves in Khavaran cemetery and other locations in Iran, and establishes September 1st as a day of solidarity with political prisoners in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
By passing this resolution, the Canadian parliament becomes the first country in the world to \u201cunanimously and unequivocally remember and condemn what happened in Iran as a crime against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concurrence of Cotler\u2019s announcement with the publication of an audio of Ayatollah Montazeri, corroborating the evidence of mass murders and implicating the leaders of Iran, many of whom still hold positions of power, shows how important it is for the international community to take action.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Parliament is leading the way. \u201cSo when I say we are here to remember and be reminded, when I say we are here to bear witness and we are here to take action. And I want to close with some recommendations for actions that must be taken immediately by the Canadian people in concert with the international community.\u201d Cotler said.<\/p>\n
The first recommendation is that those who committed the crimes in 1988 be held accountable today. \u201cThere is no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity,\u201d said Cotler, \u201cSo we call on the Canadian government to join with the international community to refer these crimes against humanity to international bodies like the UN Security Council and to ensure that an international tribunal of inquiry is set up as we set up with regards to the killings of Rwanda, as we set up with regards to killings in former Yugoslavia, is set up to hold these mass murderers accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second recommendation is that the Iranian government must cease and desist the continuing executions. Cotler reminded the crowd, \u201clet us not forget that Iran executes more people per capita than any other country in the world. In 2015 under the moderate \u2013 what he is sometimes called \u2013 Rouhani, Iran executed more than 1000 people. That is a larger sum than in the last 25 years. And then again those are the ones we know about, we don\u2019t know about all the others who have been executed and we don\u2019t hear about it. So number two, Canada must call upon the international community to join together to stop, and you have it here in your signs, to stop the executions now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The third recommendation is a call upon Iran to free all political prisoners. \u201cBecause those political prisoners\u2026 are also on the risk of execution. And those who are executed we may never know or hear about it, just as we are finding recently the arrest yet again of another dual Canadian Iranian national, Homa Hoodfar. The same when they arrested over 8 years ago Saeed Malekpour, who then was a permanent resident of Canada on the way of becoming a Canadian citizen. He went back to Iran to visit ill people in his family and he was arrested charged with the usual trumped up charges, tortured, and 8 years later he is still in prison. So call on Canada that if you are going to renew diplomatic relations with Iran as you said, you must make the renewing of diplomatic relations conditional on bringing the mass murderers to justice, conditional on freeing the political prisoners in Iran and putting an end to the wanton executions in Iran. \u201c<\/p>\n
Lastly, is the recommendation that Iran stop its assault on the rights of women, the rights of minorities, and end its criminalization of freedom, which is protected in the Iranian constitution. \u201cFreedom of religion or freedom of speech or freedom of assembly or freedom of association. To put an end to the imprisoning of brave human rights defenders in Iran for standing up for these political prisoners. To put an end to the arrest of brave lawyers in Iran for standing in solidarity with these political prisoners. And to put an end not only to the continuing arrest of all the leaders in civil society in Iran and I am reminded also of the Ayatollah Boroujerdi, who did nothing else but call for freedom of religion in Iran. Who stood up on behalf of other religious minorities, and ended up being put in prison, tortured, imprisoned for 11 years now, for doing nothing else but asking for the protection of freedoms guaranteed under the Iranian constitution and Iranian law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cotler concludes by saying, \u201c\u2026 we are here to stand in solidarity with Iranian people, that we are here to stand in solidarity with political prisoners in Iran, put in prison by those who themselves should be held accountable and standing trial for their crimes. That we are here to call on the Canadian government to join with the international community to stop the executions in Iran, to put an end to the imprisonment of political prisoners, to put an end to the culture of impunity, to bring the perpetrators to justice and so that we can together with the Iranian people go down the path to celebrate with all the Iranian people want and what we want together with them, and that is freedom, liberty, democracy, protection of human rights and to allow the Iranian people to give expression to the great Iranian civilization and Iranian values which regrettably are under assault but if we free the Iranian people, then we will have those values freed as well, along with political prisoners in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NCRI – The former Canadian Justice Minister, Hon. Irwin Cotler, gave a speech on August 20, at the Toronto Old City Hall. He said that this meeting, held on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":46719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-20971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\n