2 years after women stood up to Iranian regime, little to show for Canada’s sanctions
Canada has deported only a single high-ranking Iranian official, and the handful of other cases have fallen into secrecy.
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As women took to the streets in 2022 to protest Iran’s killing of a youth whose only crime was to show her hair in public, Canada announced “decisive action.”
On Nov. 14, 2022, two Liberal cabinet ministers unveiled a policy they said would “prevent senior members of the Iranian regime from finding safe haven in Canada.”
Almost two years later, the Canadian government has deported only a single high-ranking Iranian official, and the remaining cases underway have fallen into total secrecy.
Although a handful of senior regime members are undergoing deportation hearings, the Immigration and Refugee Board is holding them behind closed doors.
Global News applied to open the cases to public scrutiny but so far has been unsuccessful. The IRB ruled the cases were confidential because the Iranian officials had claimed to be refugees.
On Aug. 23, the IRB ruled the right of Canadians to be informed about the alleged regime members was “outweighed by the significant risks” publicity could cause them.
For the same reason, the IRB also refused to release copies of its decisions on the cases – even redacted versions that had been scrubbed of names and other identifying information.
