Canada provokes Iran bust-up at world meeting

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird

AFP, Ottawa, 23 Oct 2012 - Canada’s top diplomat blasted Iran for human rights violations and religious intolerance at a meeting Monday of world parliamentarians, drawing an angry response from Tehran’s delegation.
Addressing 1,400 lawmakers at the gathering in Quebec City, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said Bahais and Christians in Iran were “consistently threatened with death and torture, simply for believing.”
He also said “the evil regime in Iran... remains the most significant threat to global peace and security,” accusing Tehran of fomenting hatred against the Jewish people and supporting terrorist groups.
Iraj Nadimi, head of the eight-member Iranian delegation at the gathering, threw up his arms in a display of protest, and held up a small sign identifying his country.
Later he accused Baird of meddling in Iran’s sovereign affairs, likening the remarks to Tehran using the forum to promote Quebec’s independence from the rest of Canada.
In his speech, Baird called on delegates to return home after the 127th conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and press their respective governments to throw their support behind a human rights resolution on Iran at the United Nations.
“This regime stands for everything we parliamentarians should stand against,” he said.
After Ottawa on Sept. 7 announced the closure of its embassy in Tehran and expelled Iranian diplomats from Canada, the Iranians’ attendance at the IPU was initially in doubt.
Ottawa did not cite a specific incident for the breakdown in relations, but issued a strongly worded attack on the Islamic Republic’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its “incitement to genocide” against Israel.
Ottawa has also accused its rulers of failing to account for their disputed nuclear program.
Iran, which has been ruled by an Islamic theocracy since the 1979 revolution, is locked in a diplomatic stand-off with the West over its nuclear activities, which Tehran insists are entirely peaceful.
While Iran claims it is pursuing purely civilian atomic energy and research, Washington, Israel and their allies argue it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability.
In a scrum with reporters on Monday after his speech, Baird dismissed the Iranian delegation’s reaction to his comments, saying “sometimes the truth hurts.”
“Staying silent is never an option when people stone women, when they hang gays, when they incite genocide, when they say they want to wipe the Jewish people and the Jewish state off the map,” he said.
“It is never good for anyone in civilized society to stay quiet. It is tremendously important as an international community that we speak with one voice.”
In his speech, Baird was also critical of children being forced into marriages in Niger, of “actively and viciously implemented” laws against homosexuality in Uganda, and of the Assad regime for “despicably slaughtering innocent civilians.”
The delegation of Uganda condemned what they called Baird’s “arrogance and ignorance” for his criticism of Uganda’s treatment of gays and lesbians.

(There is a Farsi translation of this story available here.) 

Category: Politics

European Parliament delegation’s visit to Tehran is considered as complicity with religious fascism in its crimes and is condemned by Iranian people

EP should avoid this visit and not allow its prestige and credit to be distorted

Iranian Resistance condemns scheduled visit of a number of European Parliament members to Iran under mullahs’ rule, and asks EP president to prevent their visit and not to allow them to distort EP’s prestige and credit by supporting the most ruthless contemporary dictatorship. 
The motivation behind such a visit is neither a delusion about the mullahs’ regime’s capacity to become moderate, nor even due to appeasement policy in general, but before anything else, the incentive is certain personal, party, or business interests aimed at painting a pretty picture of religious fascism that in addition to killing Iranian people, is deeply involved in massacre of people in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, and is doing its outmost to achieve nuclear bomb.
Through such visits, these individuals and their behind-the-scene circles vainly attempt to prevent definite overthrow of this regime on which they have made immense economic and political investments. 
This visit is being made at a time that only few days have passed since the widespread demonstration of Bazaar merchants and people in Tehran chanting “Death to dictator”, and while gallows continue to be prepared in prisons and in every city for collective executions of prisoners aimed to intensify atmosphere of intimidation in the society. 
The leaders of mullahs’ regime should be brought to justice for their crimes against humanity and genocide, particularly in Iran, Syria and Iraq. Shaking hands with them by any party is condemned by the people of Iran and is considered as complicity in these crimes. Such visits will only benefit the regime to intensify repression, to continue its ominous nuclear weapon project, and to export terrorism and fundamentalism.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
October 19, 2012

Category: Politics