For the fourth year, the all-party Iran Accountability Week, chaired by Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, is underway in Parliament through May 15.

The weeklong series of events sounds the alarm on the four-fold Iranian threat – nuclear, terrorist, incitement, and in particular the Iranian regime’s widespread and systematic violations of human rights.

“Iran Accountability Week occurs this year as the ongoing P5+1 nuclear negotiations risk overshadowing – if not sanitizing – the Iranian regime’s widespread and systematic violations of human rights, which continue unabated despite Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s talk of moderation, Cotler said.

He said the week also coincides this year with the first anniversary of the crackdown that preceded last year’s Iranian presidential election and the sixth anniversary of the imprisonment of Iran’s Baha’i leadership.

Cotler noted that Iran has seen more than 600 executions since Rouhani’s rise to power in August, 2013, with more than 250 executions in 2014 alone.

As well, there is the “continuing unjust imprisonment of more than 900 prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, including women, human rights defenders, ethnic and religious leaders, journalists, bloggers, students, and trade union leaders.

“In a word, the leaders of Iranian civil society – many under threat of execution.”

At a May 12 public forum, participants included  Dubowitz, Alfoneh, and Susanne Tamas, director of government relations, Baha’i Community of Canada.