Trudeau in the Protests against Iran regime
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau came out in Ottawa to participate in the Global Freedom Human Chain rally, organized, in ten cities across Canada and in the rest of the world. The Protest was organized, by the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, in support of Mehsa Amini, who died in the custody of Iran’s Morality Police on September 16, 2022. Mehsa Amini had been arrested for not wearing Hijab.
In Iran the protests against forcible wearing of Hijab have developed into calls for removal of the oppressive regime under the Ayatollahs.
Canada has imposed unprecedented sanctions and made leadership of the Iranian regime inadmissible to Canada. At the rally, the Prime Minister said: “We know there are people in Canada now who have benefited from the corrupt, from the horrific regime in Iran and who are hiding amongst … this beautiful community. ..Taking advantage of Canada’s freedoms, Canada’s opportunities, and using the riches they stole from the Iranian people to live a good life in Canada. Well, we say no more.”
We welcome the move. But we are worried and we want the Canadian Government to prevent ‘the corrupt persons’, who might have been active participants in oppression in their mother countries and who may be hiding in Canada, from indulging in such nefarious activities in Canada at the behest of ‘the horrific regimes’. We hopethe Canadian Government informs such ‘corrupt persons’ that the Government’s agencies know about their past associations and that Canada expects them to imbibe the values of Canada and not to associate themselves with the activities of the oppressive regimes in any way.
International Reach of Oppressive Regimes: Recently on October 24, 2022, a senior journalist, Arshad Sharif was shot dead in Kenya by the Nairobi police, ostensibly due to a mistaken identity. Earlier he had left Pakistan since he had received threats to his life, since his work as a journalist was not to the liking of some powerful organizations. We note that ISI, Pakistan’s premier spy agency, has denied its responsibility in this killing. While we would like to believe Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum of ISI, we do not know, who in Pakistan was threatening the life of Arshad Sharif.
A similar unsolved mystery is about the murder of Karima Mehrab (Baloch), whose dead body was found near Toronto’s downtown waterfront on 22nd December 2020. She was facing death threats in Pakistan and she was granted asylum in Canada in 2016. Let us keep the ‘beautiful community’ in Canada a safe place, where diverse opinions and ideas can flourish and inter-act without any fear, whatsoever.