The Sanctimony of The Iranian Ayatollahs' Outrage

"[Iranian sanctions are being imposed on the newspaper and eight individuals in Canada] for supporting terrorism and the Mojahedin Khalq Organization [MKO] terrorist group inciting and encouraging terrorist acts and violence against the people of Iran, propagating false information about Iran and participation in the implementation and escalation of oppressive sanctions against the people of Iran."

"The Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes that facilitating and supporting terrorist acts and the terrorist MKO group violates the international obligations of the Canadian government in fighting terrorism."

"The implementation of unilateral coercive measures [cruel sanctions] by that government is a clear violation of the fundamental principles of international rules and the principles stipulated in the United Nations Charter and makes the Canadian government internationally accountable." 

"Obviously the sanctions will not rule out the criminal prosecution of the individuals in competent courts of law due to their involvement in criminal actions."

Iranian Foreign Ministry 

Students of the Sharif University of Technology protesting in early October. Photograph: AP

 

The violent, widespread protests taking place all over Iran since September resulting from the death in custoody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman arrested by the country's 'morality police' for improperly wearing a hijab, have their counterparts in sympathy demonstrations led by expatriate Iranian Kurds living in self-exile in Europe and North America. Mass protests that the Islamic Republic speaks of as 'terrorist' events inspired by Iran's 'enemies' who seek to bring down the theocratic government.

 

Canada's National Post newspaper, the government's minister of foreign affairs, minister of public safety, minister of national defence, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, chief of the defence staff, commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the judge who issued the ruling on confiscation of Islamic Republic of Iran's assets in Canada have all been named as individuals to be denied entry to Iran, 

Demonstrator hold placards of state enemy caricatures during the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. expulsion from Iran, in Tehran, Iran November 4, 2022. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

How very typical of Islamost authorities to accuse those opposing their tyranny and involvement in terrorism to accuse their opponents of all the sinister violence and criminal acts that they themselves are guilty of. On the world stage, the Islamic Republic of Iran is well known for its support for, involvement in and incitement of terrorist acts. As is its inflexible determination to gain nuclear weapons to pair with long-range missiles threatening other nations in the Middle East.

 

One such terrorist act committed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps when it shot down a Ukraine airliner outside of Iran en route to Canada, carrying hundreds of passengers, most of them Canadian citizens or permanent residents and Iranian students studying in Canada. Initial denials gave way to reluctant admission when incontrovertible proof arose of Iran's responsibility for the missiles that exploded the airliner killing all aboard.

The victims are still awaiting recognition and compensation from Iran. Iranian assets were seized in Canada as a reflection of its status as a terrorist entity, one that Canada has no formal diplomatic relations with. Iran represents a country singularly loathed for its government-sponsored terror unleashed on its own population as well as its interference in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq and Syria, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in its relentless striving to achieve a goal of Shiite supremacy.

When the Islamists came to power in 1979 it illustrated immediately the kind of outlier tyrannical government the world would be facing when fundamentalist students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran to hold 57 American diplomats posted to Iran hostage for well over a year. If that single, introductory event to the governing Ayatollahs' platform of raging violence did not represent a violation of international norms and an assault against the human rights and government responsibility standards upheld by the United Nations nothing would, belying the sanctimonious statement of the Iranian foreign ministry.

 

People demonstrate during the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. expulsion from Iran, in Tehran, Iran November 4, 2022. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

Iranian state television broadcast anti-American demonstrations with tens of thousands of people committing to the "National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance" by calling "Death to America", with schoolchildren carrying banners supporting the seizure of the U.S. embassy 43 years ago. The irony of such demonstrations taking place at the very time that other, larger, more widespread demonstrations are taking place demanding the death of Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can be lost on no one.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke of the protests against the government as "deceived traitors" and that "I am telling Biden that Iran was freed 43 years ago", in response to the U.S. president's having stated his solidarity with the protesters and that soon they would succeed in freeing themselves from the Republic's tyranny. A tyranny that has to date killed an estimated 300 protesters whom the regime speaks of as 'traitors' and 'terrorists' for wanting an end to the oppressive regime persecuting its own.

Iranian protests over the death of Mahsa Amini have carried on for more than a month in Tehran, October 27, 2022.  Stringer/Middle East Images/File