Thread by @kshahrooz

[LONG THREAD] 1/ You know what makes a mockery of Canada’s commitment to human rights? Inviting Trita Parsi (@tparsi), the Iranian regime’s chief apologist in the West, to testify before Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rts, as part of #IranAccountabilityWeek. #cdnpoli #cdnfp

2/ I hope the members of the subcommittee(@anitavandenbeld, @DavidSweetMP, @CHardcastleNDP, @DavidAndersonSK, @pfragiskatos, @iamIqraKhalid, @MarwanTabbaraMP) read this. And one of them can explain why Parsi was invited.

3/ Background: Parsi is the founder of NIAC (@niacouncil), a lobby group devoted to normalizing relations with Iran’s regime. They deny being a lobby group. But their internal documents show they are. () newrepublic.com/article/71237/…

4/ Parsi has an interesting history which goes through US congressman Bob Ney. Ney was charged in a corruption scandal in part because of bribes he took to help the purchase of airplanes by Iranian officials. Ney’s foreign policy advisor? A young Trita Parsi, of course.

5/ Parsi then established the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Among his indirect donors were people like Vahid Alagheband, a London businessman who has served time in prison for, again, selling aircrafts to Iran in violation of sanctions.

6/ Much of what we know about Parsi comes via a defamation claim he/NIAC launched (and lost,to the tune of $184k) against US-based activist Hassan Daei (@iraniansforum), who had written that NIAC is a “key players in the lobby enterprise of Tehran’s ayatollahs..."