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Canada to Impose New Sanctions on Iran amid Mahsa Amini death

9-27-2022

On Monday September 27, 2022 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada will sanction "dozens" of Iranian individuals and entities, including the morality police, as security forces in Iran continue to crack down violently on protesters.

Trudeau said: "We are with you." While addressing the "women who are protesting in Iran and those who support them," 

Trudeau response comes after thousands of people protested across Canada. In Vancouver thousands gathered on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery calling on Iran to end laws requiring women to wear hijabs in public as well as to abolish the country's use of capital punishment. 

Trudeau said Canadians want the government of the Islamic Republic to "listen to its people, end the suppression of their freedom and rights, and allow the women and all people of Iran to continue their lives freely and to comment in peace and tranquility."

While answering a question about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Trudeau said that Canada already had "one of the most severe sanctions regimes in the world" and would do more in this regard.

"We have sanctioned some IRGC members, and we will continue to consider any other action we can take in relation to the sanctions," he said.

The recent round of protests, which have been occurring in all of Iran’s provinces, began after Mahsa Amini died while in police custody.

Amini, 22, who had traveled from Saqez to Tehran with her family, was arrested on September 13 by the Irshad patrol for wearing her hijab too loosely. She was then transferred to the Moral Security Police Center, known as Ministers' Detention Center. Hours later, she was taken by ambulance to Kasari hospital, where she died on September 16.

Amini's family members allege she was beaten in the police van after her arrest, suffering several blows to the head. Police reject the allegations, saying Amini died of a heart attack.

While Amini's death has become a flashpoint for this round of protests, many people in attendance at the events say there is wider anger at the ultra-conservative policies of the regime that has been in place since the 1979 Iranian revolution — as well as specific anger at the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, a noted Islamist who came to power in 2021.

Protests have spread across at least 46 cities, towns and villages in Iran. There has also been condemnation from Western countries and the United Nations, as well as protests in solidarity abroad.



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