The Islamic Republic occupying Iran does not hide what it is. It survives through fear, prison, and execution—and it uses all three openly.

In 2025 alone, at least 1,639 people were executed. The highest number since 1989. This is not a legal system. It is a method of control.

This regime jails dissent, crushes opposition, and punishes basic acts of defiance. Its record is not debated. It is documented.

Canada knows this. It has already designated the Islamic Republic as a state sponsor of terrorism under the State Immunity Act, based on years of evidence: proxy warfare abroad, destabilization across the region, and brutal repression at home.

And yet, last week, the Liberal government of Canada supported this same regime’s involvement in a United Nations human rights body.

That decision is hard to explain in any serious way. The UN was created to defend human rights—not to give legitimacy to governments that routinely violate them. When regimes like Tehran are brought into these spaces, something basic breaks: the difference between protecting rights and undermining them starts to disappear.

This is not theoretical. It lands directly on people inside Iran. On prisoners. On families of the executed. On women and men who take real risks just to speak or act freely.

What message does it send to them? That their government, even with this record, is still treated as a legitimate voice on human rights?

Institutions don’t collapse overnight. They drift. One decision at a time. One compromise at a time. Until standards no longer mean what they say.

A regime that executes its own citizens should not be shaping the language of human rights.

That is the line. And last Wednesday, it was crossed.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)