(Ottawa) The federal government is expanding a measure that bans tens of thousands of Iranian officials from entering Canada.
The change, announced Sunday, means that any senior official who served in the Iranian government at any time since June 23, 2003, is now inadmissible to Canada.
Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was arrested on that date in Tehran and died in hospital nearly three weeks later after being tortured and raped.
Ottawa first designated the Iranian government as a regime engaged in terrorism and systematic or gross human rights abuses in November 2022, and denied entry to senior officials who had served in the government since November 15, 2019.
Current and former public servants present in Canada could also lose their temporary or permanent resident status and could be deported from the country.
In June, the government listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization under the Criminal Code, after years of pressure from Iranian-Canadians and opposition parties.