Federal government announces new Iran sanctions

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced Thursday that Canada is adding more Iranian officials and entities to the sanctions list.

The measures will bar 17 individuals and three entities from entering Canada or doing business with most Canadian firms.

They include Saeed Mortazavi, the prosecutor who ordered the torture of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian Canadian journalist who died in custody in 2003.

Global Affairs Canada said in a news release that the sanctions are targeted at Iranian officials who have committed or enabled human rights violations against women, or perpetuated disinformation.

Joly said it was particularly important to list Mortazavi.

"My message to the Iranian regime is we haven't forgotten, and we will never forget, and that's why we're imposing these new sanctions," Joly said in an interview Thursday morning from Seoul, South Korea.

The list also includes Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister from 2013 to 2021 (whom Canadian groups had asked to be sanctioned), Peyman Jebelli, the head of the state broadcaster, and Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of the state-controlled Kayhan newspaper. Joly's office accuses the newspaper of regularly publishing antisemitic propaganda, Holocaust denial and threats against Canada's allies.

A senior prisons official, Gholamreza Ziaei, is listed, as is senior government adviser Ali Larijani. A commander of police forces in southwestern Iran, Manouchehr Amanollahi, is also on the list.

Those listed will have their Canadian-held assets frozen as Ottawa tries to put a new law into action to seize those assets and disperse them to victims and human rights defenders.

The new sanctions are in addition to the 25 individuals and nine entities the government sanctioned last week.

Later on Thursday, ministers will share more details on the round of sanctions announced last Friday, which are meant to bar high-ranking members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps from entering Canada, for life.

That move followed mounting pressure by the Conservatives and members of the Iranian diaspora in Canada to list that entire organization as a terrorist group.