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Nazanin Afshin-Jam 

The CIC will host a day-long conference on Oct. 27 called “Democracy in Action – Crisis in Iran” in Ottawa. It will be highlighted by keynote speaker Nazanin Afshin-Jam, an Iranian-Canadian political activist who was Miss Canada 2003 and is the co-founder and president of Stop Child Executions.

She will discuss her experiences with Iranian human rights abuses and her organization’s ongoing attempt to end the practice of child executions in her homeland.

Speaking to The CJN last week from Vancouver, Afshin-Jam had a specific message for Jews and pro-Israel advocates: the average Iranian doesn’t hate Israel.

In fact, she said, grassroots sentiment in Iran is quite the opposite.

“I’m in regular contact with people in Iran. Generally, Iranians have no problem with Jews and the State of Israel,” Afshin-Jam said. “Iranians want the world to know that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad does not speak for them on [the topics of] Israel or the U.S.”

Nafshim-Jam added that it “bothers” Iranians that their president has made comments about destroying Israel and denying the Holocaust. She said that in her people’s eyes, Israel has every right to exist as a Jewish state.

“The Iranian people want peace, freedom and human rights for Iran, Israel and the whole world,” she said, adding that in her opinion, the international community must continue to pressure China and Russia to see Iran’s current regime as the global threat it will become if it acquires nuclear weapons, and that U.S. President Barack Obama should stop negotiating softly with the “murderous thugs” and “messianic leaders” who rule Iran.

“We are the sons and daughters of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian empire, who drafted the first declaration of human rights in the world. Cyrus issued the decree of liberation to the Jews and introduced laws to abolish slavery and protect the rights of religious minorities,” Afshin-Jam wrote in an e-mail.

“The vast majority of Iranians would like to uphold these principles. They would like friendly relations with Jews in Israel and Americans alike. They simply want to be free from the stranglehold of this theocratic regime that suffocates their rights on a daily basis and to have a democratic system based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If Iran were ruled by the ‘people of Iran’ there would be no nuclear threat.”

However, since that threat is now very real, the CIC believes Canadians and democracies everywhere need be concerned.

“Canada has demonstrated its capacity to be a model for the entire international community… it must play that role again,” the CIC said in a statement last week, asking that all concerned Canadians band together to “mobilize political action against the human rights abuses of the Iranian regime and its nuclear agenda.”

Other notable speakers scheduled for the conference include Iranian-Canadian lawyer and pro-democracy activist Sayeh Hassan; Liberal MP and human rights advocate Irwin Cotler; international security expert David B. Harris, and the CIC’s CEO, Shimon Fogel.

Moshe Ronen, chair of the CIC, said the conference’s main objective is to give Canadians information and tools to help them understand how their government can “lead the way” in containing Iran.

One of those tools would be the development of an “effective sanctions protocol to compel Iran towards full compliance with its treaty obligations and international law,” he said.

“Our collective failure to address the threat posed by Iran will change the entire political and geo-strategic landscape… not only in the Middle East, but internationally. We have one last chance to get it right and this conference is dedicated to developing the understanding and political will to act now, while non-military options still offer the chance of reducing and eliminating the Iranian threat.

That is why it is so important for us to create a platform for action,” Ronen said.

UJA Federation of Greater Toronto has arranged for group flight rates to Ottawa to encourage interested Jewish community members and pro-Israel advocates to attend the conference. The CIC is hoping for a massive turnout.

For more information or to register, visit www.cicweb.ca

CJN