Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Iranian-Canadian human rights and democracy advocate, addressed the 17th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy on February 18th, 2025 to introduce a panel session on the Islamic Republic’s brutality against protestors.
Full Remarks:
I want to express my deep gratitude to Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi for his powerful words shedding light on the Iranian people’s struggle for democracy. I truly believe that only through unity, embracing a plurality of voices, and bound by our shared mission to overthrow the brutal regime can we pave the way for a free, secular, and democratic Iran, realized through a referendum and free and fair elections.
Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, human rights defenders, and courageous survivors,
Before coming here, my son asked me, “Mom, where are you going?” And I said to him, “Disneyland.” And he said, “Disneyland? How come you’re not taking us?” And I said, “I’m going to Geneva.” And he said, “I didn’t know there’s a Disneyland in Geneva.” And I said, “Well, it’s a kind of a Disneyland for Human Rights Defenders. We have a slew of very interesting characters, heroes of our time. We go on several rides, emotional rides. And at the end, after consuming so much, after we’ve tasted that sweet cotton candy, we don’t know if we’re leaving feeling like we have that taste of solidarity or whether we feel sick of the inaction of the international community.” He rolled his eyes, of course, and asked me when we’re actually going to Disneyland.
It is a true pleasure to be here and to witness the incredible journey of the Geneva Summit over the years. As I said earlier, I had the honour of chairing the first summit about 16 years ago, and I continue to marvel at the vital platform that this Summit provides human rights defenders and survivors.
While we may not always feel heard in institutions such as the United Nations or other international fora, where tragically our oppressors are too often given the stage, we can count on the Geneva Summit as a place where truth prevails, and where we can unite under a shared commitment to justice, freedom, and human dignity.
It is in this spirit that I am honoured today to introduce three Iranians who recently escaped Iran with deeply personal and courageous stories.
As you all heard, for more than four decades, the people of Iran have endured relentless repression under the rule of Ayatollahs, Khomeini and Khamenei and its oppressive IRGC forces. Their regime not only commits atrocities under the veiled guise of ideology and religion but does so with an inexplicable layer of evil and cruelty.
Let history note that:
This regime not only silences dissent, by arresting peaceful protesters, but arrests the lawyers defending them or representing them, and the journalists reporting them.
Not only executes political prisoners but arrests and harasses the family members that are trying to mourn them.
Not only discriminates against ethnic and other marginalized groups like the LGBTQ community, but deliberately hunts them and targets them.
And not only persecutes religious minorities like Baha’is who are denied access to higher education and certain professions, but goes so far as desecrating their graves in an attempt to erase them.
And not only arrests and beat women for not properly wearing the hijab, but rape them in the process as a tool of repression.
Let’s not forget: When the morality police brutally beat Jina Mahsa Amini for not properly wearing the hijab, it ignited the Women, Life, Freedom revolutionary movement—the powerful uprising where millions of people came out onto the streets, not just demanding reform, but calling for a complete overthrow of the regime.
Their courage came at an immense cost. In just a few months of peaceful protests, 600 people were killed, including 68 children. Over 20,000 people were arrested, and hundreds were injured or blinded. This does not even include the 900 people that were executed in Iran last year alone—making it the country with the highest number of executions of women and children in the world.
The UN’s fact finding mission Report on Iran last year not only found that this regime committed egregious human rights abuses and systematic repression of women’s rights but it concluded that it had committed crimes against humanity.
But despite the brutality, the Iranian people have never surrendered their fight for freedom. From Friday protests in Balochistan, the workers in Khuzestan, the widespread strikes in Kordestan and teachers in Isfahan to the prisons of Evin in Tehran including many students, talented artists and advocates including a nobel peace laureate —these are the real heroic voices of Iran, and they cannot be silenced.
Shortly we will hear from three ordinary Iranians with extraordinary courage—those who have risked everything not just for their own rights, but for the generations to come. They fight so that no child is forced to scavenge for food in dumpsters, no youth is indoctrinated into the Basij forces to repress their own people, and no citizen must live in fear of their own government.
They stood up so that one day, Iranians can enjoy the simple freedoms that make life worth living—like walking your dog without fear of your pet being confiscated and killed, breathing clean air without the suffocating pollution, having access to water, a soon-to-be luxury with the drying up of the lakes, holding their loved one’s hands and dancing or singing in the streets without fear of arrest. Their struggle is for a future where dignity, joy, and freedom are not crimes—but basic human rights.
And that is why we are here.
This summit is not just a platform for discussion—it is a call to action. The Iranian regime thrives on the world’s silence and appeasement, but silence and compliance are actually complicity. It was this silence that resulted in the torture and death in custody of German national and hostage Jamshid Sharmahd. His daughter was at this Summit a few years ago, pleading for his life. It is our duty, as free nations, as human rights advocates, and as defenders of democracy, to amplify the cries of the oppressed and hold the oppressors accountable for their actions in our own countries through universal jurisdiction or at the International Criminal Court.
Sanctions, like the Magnitsky sanctions, must be enforced, and not just discussed. Western Liberal democracies must follow Canada and the United States in designating the IRGC on the terrorist list and closing the embassies. Having diplomatic relations with tyrants must come at a cost.
And to those who argue that diplomacy requires engagement, let me be clear: there is no truth, accountability or negotiating with a regime that executes children despite the fact that they’ve signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child which forbid it. What makes you think that the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world will comply with a second nuclear deal?
Let me ask another rhetorical question: Would you be willing to meet, shake hands, or do trade deals with someone who segregated people based on their skin color? Beginning in the 1960s, the world took a firm stance against racial apartheid in South Africa, making it clear that such injustice would NOT be tolerated.
Why, then, has the global community failed to unite in condemning the Iranian regime for its systemic oppression of women where the law places the life of a woman as half a man under the law? This form of apartheid—gender apartheid—is just as insidious and must be denounced with the same unwavering resolve.
Why are free nations allowing regime officials to enter their borders with their dirty, laundered money but accept so few deserving refugees? Bonafide Iranian refugees with UNHCR status are being deported back to Iran from Turkey at great risk of severe consequences.
We must stop legitimizing the small group of Islamist tyrants ruling close to 90 million people they do not represent and unleashing terror through their proxies. I say this not just for the safety and security of Iranians but for the world entire.
Today, you will hear from individuals who have lived through the horrors of the Islamic Republic’s oppression and have recently escaped . These are not just stories, they are testimonies of resilience, proof of the regime’s crimes, and a reminder of why our fight must continue.
Let us listen. Let us open our hearts and bear witness. And most importantly let us act.
