The Canadian foreign minister continues to violate Iranians’ rights
Ali Mokhtari
The Canadian foreign minister still insists on violating Iranians’ rights and discriminating against them on no legal basis.
What is the story?
Almost everybody knows about the sanctions imposed by the Canadian government on Iran and Iranian residents. According to these illegal and inappropriate sanctions, any financial transactions between Canadian institutions and citizens with the Iranian government and Iranian residents are prohibited, except for certain situations. On the other hand, the Canadian law authorizes the foreign minister to consider the applications of the Iranians who request to be excluded from these sanctions and to issue permissions for them on an ad hoc basis. Only a few of these requests had been responded to from November 2011 when the sanctions law was passed to mid-2012. However, no other requests have been considered except for a very small number since then.
In the beginning, the requests were promised to be considered and responded to in 16 weeks. But now, the applicants have been waiting for two years, which is totally unacceptable. The majority of these applicants are those who have applied for immigration to Canada, accepted by the provincial governments through different programs, and need to get permission from the foreign ministry in order to be able to transfer their assets and complete their immigration process in accordance to the Canadian Law.
