It is deeply troubling in the time of the genocidal killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, to witness the suppression of freedom of speech of students and academics, and the threats against political dissidents around the world. 

ICC is heartbroken to see various forms of state violence and takes a stance to condemn any form of intimidation, violence, imprisonment, or criminal prosecution that violates an individual's right to freedom of speech; such as the sentencing of Iranian rapper, Toomaj Salehi, to death; a sentence which we hope will never be executed.  

The ICC strongly believes in the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, ICC advocates for a grassroots-led approach in the fight against violations of human rights instead of foreign interventions in domestic politics in any country.  

ICC emphasizes that any form of sanctions against the Iranian people violates their human rights to pursue a healthy and prosperous life, and therefore we oppose the adoption of any such policies by the Canadian government.  

Since 2008, the Iranian Canadian Congress (ICC) has worked tirelessly with the interests of the Iranian Canadian community in mind, and with the core values of peace, solidarity, freedom, justice and transparency. It is unfortunate that the ICC and its board members have frequently been the target of cyberbullying by individuals who oppose our core values, who choose aggression over peace, bullying over freedom of speech, and trolling while cowardly hiding behind their -sometimes unknown- online identity. 

The ICC board members, and the members of the public alike, have been targeted by such bullies on many social media platforms, who aim to create a toxic atmosphere or hoping to interfere with or to discourage the board members from their peaceful activities. 

The ICC board members are and have been aware and prepared to face the trolls and the toxic environment that they wish to create, finding encouragement instead of being discouraged, and determination instead of distraction. After all, the harder the trolls try, the more we have reason to believe in the positive impacts of ICC’s overall strategies, giving us more reason and determination to continue working toward our peaceful ambitions. 

Despite the above, we condemn the acts of cyberbullying, and encourage our members and the public to stay sensitive about such activities. Cyberbullying, especially when it involves physical threats, is a criminal activity and the ICC will assess such activities going forward and may choose to report them to the respective social media platform, or in more serious cases to the police. For further information about cyberbullying please consult the following resources. 

https://www.unicef.org/end-violence/how-to-stop-cyberbullying 

https://ssd.eff.org/module/your-security-plan 

https://womensmediacenter.com/speech-project/tools-resources 

https://www.datasociety.net/pubs/oh/Online_Harassment_2016.pdf 

http://cdeacf.ca/boite-outils-cyberintimidation 

https://onlineharassmentfieldmanual.pen.org/protecting-information-from-doxing/