Green MP Golriz Ghahraman confronted the ambassador with pictures of people who have been detained or executed in Iran. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Iran's Ambassador to New Zealand has appeared before MPs in a meeting on Thursday which often turned fiery.
In an hour-long exchange with members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade committee, Reza Nazarahari defended Iran and its regime's response to protests which have engulfed the country since September.
Iranian-born Green MP Golriz Ghahraman confronted the ambassador with pictures of people who have been detained or executed in Iran, while Labour MP Ibrahim Omer said the actions of the Iranian regime were "tainting" Islam.
The protests began following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died a Tehran hospital a few days after being arrested for allegedly not complying with Iran's mandatory dress-code.
Iran maintains her death was due to an underlying heart condition. Hundreds of people have since been killed in Iran, and thousands more detained. Seven protesters have also been executed.
Iran's 'morality police' have recently returned to the streets, cracking down on women refusing to wear the hijab.
The New Zealand government has applied a number of sanctions to Iran, including travel bans. But it has not expelled the ambassador, in order to keep diplomatic channels open.
Nazarahari, who was appointed in April, accepted an invitation to speak to the committee, before taking questions. It was the first time an Iranian official had appeared before MPs since the protests began.
Labour MP Ibrahim Omer, who is Parliament's sole Muslim MP, told the ambassador that Iran was using Islam as a tool to torture, oppress, and kill women and girls.
"What we have seen in Iran, what we have seen in the streets of Tehran and other cities, and then later on, the prolonged sentences against human rights defenders for peacefully opposing wearing hijab, and then all the things that followed - executions, arbitrary arrests, torture, and the list goes on - all this in the name of Islam and the hijab."
Omer said he had family members who chose to wear hijab, and others who chose not to. He said what he was seeing in Iran was "tainting" Islam.
"When I see Islam is being dragged into this it angers me, it frustrates me, because I am a proud Muslim."
Responding to Omer, Nazarahari said everyone who was executed had committed a crime. He also denied Mahsa Amini was deliberately killed by police.
"You say she was killed? How was she killed?" he responded.
"We have not killed her by bullet. It is a kind of accident happened. The first day, our president contacted her family, and later created a special committee for investigating the case."
He later compared Amini's death to that of George Floyd in the USA and Nahel Merzouk in France.
Nazarahari said international perceptions of what was happening in Iran was being informed by foreign media, and the protests were being fuelled by foreign interference, which sought to replace the current Iranian regime with another. He also disputed the number of people who had been killed.
Golriz Ghahraman, whose family arrived in New Zealand as refugees, showed the ambassador photos of imprisoned rapper Toomaj Salehi, Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, who were executed for participating in the protests, and imprisoned journalists Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi.
She also showed Nazarahari a photo of Mahsa Amini lying in hospital before she died.
"She is not just a name," Ghahraman said.
Ghahraman also presented the ambassador with a copy of a letter the Green Party sent to Grand Ayatollah Khamenei in January, condemning Iran's response to protests.
She addressed the ambassador in English and then in Farsi.
"Your regime is committing crimes against humanity," she told him.
Nazarahari challenged MPs to see what was happening in Iran for themselves.
"The reality on the ground is something else. Come to Iran, you'll see how people are living," he told Ghahraman - who replied she is unable to do so as she is a political refugee.
National's foreign affairs spokesperson Gerry Brownlee said in his 27 years in Parliament, the only time he had ever gone out to its forecourt to support a protest was last year, to join those protesting against the crackdown on demonstrations in Iran.
"It seems the current regime in Iran is saying 'you can leave peaceably if you are prepared to give up your demands for freedom'," he told the ambassador.
Brownlee said New Zealand used to have a good relationship with Iran, which it no longer had.
Under questioning from National MP Simon O'Connor, Nazarahari addressed the detention of two New Zealanders in Iran last year.
Influencers Topher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray were detained for nearly four months before being released.
Nazarahari said Richwhite and Thackwray ignored signs, entered a restricted area, and took photos.
But he rejected any suggestion the pair were hostages.
"We don't arrest them, just we took their passports."
The ambassador attributed the length of time the New Zealanders were detained to process issues.
"Unfortunately when a case goes to the security side, it takes a very long time. Myself, I have this grievance that there should be a shorter period for ending these cases."
The ambassador refused to speak to media following the committee hearing.