Canada has sanctioned a high-profile former Tehran police chief whose appearance at a Toronto-area gym last year sparked outrage and allegations that Canada is a haven for high-ranking members of Iran’s regime and their relatives.
Morteza Talaei is a retired second brigadier general with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and was in charge of Tehran’s police in 2003 when Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in custody.
Kazemi was arrested in 2003 for taking photos of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where protests were taking place over students detained by the regime.
Iran’s government eventually admitted she had been beaten but maintains her death was accidental. The attending physician, who fled to Canada, said Kazemi showed signs of “very brutal rape,” torture and head trauma before her death.
Now, almost 20 years after Kazemi’s death, the federal government has announced it is targeting Talaei — along with three other Iranians and five entities — under the Special Economic Measures Act for gross and systemic human rights violations committed in Iran.
Under the regulations, the government can ban people from entering Canada and freeze any assets they may have in the country.
“We’re looking and continuing to look at all ways to ensure that the Iranian regime knows its continued reprehensible behaviour is absolutely unacceptable,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday.
Iranian journalists light candles for Canadian-Iranian freelance photographer Zahra Kazemi, who died while under arrest in Tehran in 2003. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images)
The federal government is under intense pressure from the Iranian-Canadian diaspora and the Conservatives to get tough on Iran.
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in September triggered massive protests across Iran and around the world, including in Canada. Iran’s morality police arrested Amini for wearing her mandatory hijab “improperly.”
On Nov. 14, the federal government listed Iran as a regime that engages in terrorism and systemic human rights violations and banned regime members, including their relatives, from entering Canada. Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said the ban could lead the government to revoke a relative’s permanent resident status if they’re already in Canada.
Some Iranian-Canadians claim thatregime officials have immediate family living in Canada and may have financial assets here. Many in the Iranian community also allege that female family members of Iranian officials in Canada often don’t adhere to the strict dress codes the regime itself requires for women in Iran.
A video and photos posted on social media in January showed Talaei walking on a treadmill at a gym in Richmond Hill in 2021. Swiss-based Iranian independent journalist Abdollah Abdi posted the images, raising questions about what Talaei was doing in the country.
Abdi said Talaei later told him he was visiting his daughter but insisted it was a private matter.
An Iranian journalist inside Iran, Fariborz Kalantari, tweeted that the question isn’t why Talaei was in Canada but rather how his daughter obtained Canadian residency.
The National Post was the first Canadian media outlet to report on the photos.
سردار مرتضی طلایی کجاست؟<br><br>بر اساس عکس‌ها و فیلم به دست رسیده مرتضی طلائی، نایب رئیس سابق شورای اسلامی شهر تهران و رئیس پلیس سابق تهران بزرگ که در سال هشتاد و پنج با درجه نظامی سردار سرتیپ دوم پاسدار بازنشسته شده بود اکنون در کاناد اقامت دارد و به زندگی مشغول است. <a href=”https://t.co/6X3WHBtWKD”>pic.twitter.com/6X3WHBtWKD</a>
Many on social media called out the hypocrisy of a high-ranking regime official working out at a gym where women do not wear hijabs.
U.S.-based Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad has called on Canada to find out how the former “chief of Tehran police and IRGC commander was allowed to enter the country.”
“He’s working out next to an unveiled woman but his police flogged women for not wearing hijab,” she tweeted in January to her 600,000-plus followers.
Shocking that Canada gave visa to this torturer. <br>We call on Canada to investigate how former chief of Tehran police and IRGC commander was allowed to enter the country. <br>He’s working out next to an unveiled woman but his police flogged women for not wearing hijab.<a href=”https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@JustinTrudeau</a> <a href=”https://t.co/4dVSlVP0h5″>pic.twitter.com/4dVSlVP0h5</a>
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not answer CBC’s questions about how Talaei entered Canada previously and whether any family he might have here would be affected by the sanctions against him.
“Due to privacy legislation,” the department said, “we cannot comment on individual cases.”
IRCC said broadly that spouses, partners or dependent children of those sanctioned for being a member of a terrorist organization would be inadmissible to Canada. But it added that “if a person is already in Canada and becomes inadmissible due to an inadmissible family member, they could apply for a temporary resident permit or for permanent residence under humanitarian and compassionate considerations.”
CBC News has searched property records and has not located any homes listed under Talaei’s name in Ontario.
The National Post reported on Talaei’s controversial history in Iran, including his role in creating a new police unit in Tehran in 2006 to enforce the country’s dress code for women.
Women in Iran accused of not wearing their veils properly face arrest and prison.
Talaei told the state-controlled Fars news agency in 2006 the unit would “confront women showing their bare legs in short pants.”
“We are also going to combat women wearing skimpy head scarves, short and form-fitting coats, and the ones walking pets in parks and streets,” he said.
The federal government also announced sanctions against Ali Ghanaatkar, who was a senior judge, prosecutor and interrogator at Evin prison.
U.K. Labour Party MP Chris Bryant has alleged Ghanaatkar was involved in mistreating detainees, bringing false charges against them and forcefully interrogating them.
The federal government also announced sanctions on Iran’s Javan News Agency, the Baharestan Kish Company, Safiran Airport Services and Hassan Karami, the commander of the Islamic Republic’s Law Enforcement Forces special units.
EDMONTON – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
