ECAJ calls for Australia to take strong measures against Iran
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has lodged a submission with the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee in response to its Inquiry into Human rights implications of recent violence in Iran.
The submission calls for: Australia to impose further sanctions on Iranian officials and government agencies; the IRGC and Basij to be listed as terrorist organisations; the expulsion of Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women; Australia’s Smartraveller advisory webpage with regard to Iran to provide more detailed and explicit warnings about the cruel methods of execution, torture and other forms of mistreatment, including beatings and sexual assault, which travellers risk if they are detained; and tracking of Iranian funds to Australian charities and not-for-profits.
To date, Australia has done far less than the US, the UK and Canada in giving support to the brave young protesters who are calling for regime change in Iran.
In the submission, author Peter Wertheim has pointed out that ‘Iran has long been one of the world’s leading executioners, including of minors, with 299 documented public executions in 2021 and that Iran promotes Holocaust denial, an especially pernicious form of antisemitism, through its sponsorship of the International Holocaust Cartoon Competition’.
The submission goes into detail of the death of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested for not wearing her hijab correctly.
It cites: “The appalling circumstances of Ms Amini’s death, and the Iranian regime’s attempts to cover up its responsibility for killing her, set off a wave of street demonstrations, strike actions, public defiance of the hijab laws and social media protests against the regime, beginning in cities in her home province of Kurdistan in Iran and then spreading throughout the country, across social classes, and in universities and schools.
In response to these demonstrations, beginning on 19 September the Iranian government shut down internet and mobile phone access, initially in the regions where the protests had first erupted, and then, as the protests grew, across the country, and introduced nationwide restrictions on social media.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the US and Israel and dissidents abroad for the widespread unrest.”
