5 more alleged senior members of Iranian regime face deportation from Canada
Immigration officials have launched deportation proceedings against five more suspected members of the Iranian regime found in Canada, according to newly released figures.
The Canada Border Services Agency has alleged they held senior positions in Iran’s repressive government and has asked the Immigration and Refugee Board to hold hearings.
They face removal from Canada under sanctions adopted in 2022 that ban tens of thousands of top Iranian officials, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) members, from the country.
The sanctions were enacted after Iran’s morality police arrested Mahsa Amini for showing her hair in public and killed her while she was in custody, setting off protests that were brutally suppressed.
Since then, the policy has been used to order the deportation of two Iranian officials, Majid Iranmanesh, a science advisor, and Seyed Salman Samani, who was deputy interior minister.
But unlike those cases, which were held in public, hearings for the subsequent five are being conducted behind closed doors and the government has not released their names.
Deportation hearings are supposed to occur in public, unless the person concerned has made a refugee claim. Global News has applied to open the proceedings to the press.
“Canada has, for too long, been a safe haven for people with ties to Iran’s regime. So I’m glad the government is increasingly taking action against them,” said lawyer and human rights activist Kaveh Shahrooz.
“But I wish the government would be more transparent about who these figures are and how they got into the country in the first place.”
Canada broke off diplomatic ties with Iran in 2012. In 2020, the IRGC shot down a passenger plane departing Tehran airport, killing 55
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