Canada announces sanctions over crackdown on Iranian protests

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that his country will impose sanctions on “dozens” of Iranian authorities and agencies, including the so-called Morality Police, in response to the violent crackdown on protests in Iran following the death of young Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini after she was arrested in Tehran for improperly wearing the veil.

“To the women of Iran who are protesting and to those who support them: we are with you,” Trudeau said, as reported by the Canadian public broadcaster CBC.

“We add our voices, the voices of all Canadians, to the millions of people around the world crying out to the Iranian government to listen to its people and end the repression of freedom and rights and allow women and all Iranian people to live their lives and express themselves peacefully,” he said.

Trudeau, when questioned specifically about the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, has assured that Canada “already has one of the strongest sanctions regimes in the world and we’re going to continue to do more.” “We have sanctioned some individuals, members of the Revolutionary Guard, and we are going to continue to look at anything we can do with respect to sanctions,” he explained.

At the moment, it has not been specified which individuals or organizations will be sanctioned by Canada, a country that has hardened its stance towards Tehran since the death of dozens of Canadians following Iran’s downing of a Ukrainian airliner in 2020.

At the moment Canada has an arms embargo in place, has seized some Iranian funds, vetoed some financial transactions and restricted exports and imports.

At least 41 people have been killed in the protests, according to official Iranian media reports. Security forces have used live ammunition against protesters and have reinforced deployment in regions such as Iranian Kurdistan, the epicenter of the protests.