Hundreds or protesters line Lions Gate Bridge to vent anger at Iran

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Protests had been held throughout Canada on Saturday because the households of the victims of Ukraine Worldwide Airways Flight 752 lent their voices to the worldwide requires revolution in Iran.

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In Vancouver, a number of thousand protesters lined the Lions Gate Bridge, chanting the identify of Mahsa Amini, whose demise after being detained by Iran’s morality police in September sparked worldwide demonstrations.

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“Girl, life, freedom” turned the rallying cry that marked their indicators and clothes. They known as for the downfall of the Islamic Republic, which, based in 1979, enforces strict gown codes on Iranian ladies.

Some had been moms, fathers and siblings of those that had been killed when Flight 752 was shot down by the Iranian regime shortly after takeoff greater than two years in the past.

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Vahid Emami stood on the Downtown Vancouver entrance of the bridge, holding among the final photographs taken of his spouse, Sahand Sadeghi, 39, and five-year-old daughter, Sophie. Emami was on his strategy to the Toronto airport to select up his household, together with two of his in-laws, when he heard the information of the aircraft’s destruction. All of them had been on Flight 752.

“All the pieces has been taken from me,” mentioned the 43-year-old who relocated to Vancouver final 12 months as a result of the ache of staying in his household house in Toronto turned too nice.

“I didn’t know whether or not to remain or go … commit suicide,” he advised Postmedia Information. “The one motive I stayed was due to them — to battle for change in Iran.”

Beheshteh Rezapour choked again tears whereas talking of her daughter, Bahareh, who was additionally on Flight 752. She proudly wore an image of the 33-year-old Toronto resident round her neck.

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“They killed my stunning daughter. I’m alive only for my son.” mentioned the mom, who migrated to Canada final 12 months together with her household. For them, Toronto held too many recollections of Bahareh. They selected to reside in Vancouver.

“It was laborious for us to reside within the nation that killed my sister. She was visiting us on Christmas holidays,” mentioned Ali, 35. “The one aim we have now now could be to battle for justice.”

In Iran, no less than 270 individuals have been killed within the newest protests over Amini’s demise which have swept over 125 Iranian cities, in response to Human Rights Activists. Canada has moved to bar 1000’s of members of the Iranian regime and Islamic Revolutionary Guard from coming into the nation, imposing sanctions on 89 people and 177 entities together with the regime’s safety, intelligence and financial equipment.

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Nevertheless, Canada’s authorities hasn’t designated the guard as terrorists.

Soushiant Zanganehpour, an organizer of the Vancouver protest, is asking on Ottawa to do extra to forestall extra of the guard’s officers and their associates from coming into the nation and threatening Iranians who’re protesting inside.

“There are numerous regime officers and their households who systematically come right here, some are even residents,” mentioned Zanganehpour. “We face threats towards our households, our lives, with folks that drive by our homes at nighttime. I’m calling for stricter immigration insurance policies, not simply sanctions, however extra investigations into who’s right here and why.”

Liberal MP Joyce Murray, who attended Saturday’s demonstration, mentioned Canada presently has one of many “strongest sanctions” on this planet towards the Iranian regime.

“We’re going to proceed to assessment what can we do and what can we do extra of as time flows,” she mentioned.

In the meantime, Emami and Rezapour are dedicated to persevering with to talk publicly in regards to the struggling their households have endured by the hands of Iran’s present regime.

“We have now misplaced every little thing and don’t have anything else to lose,” mentioned Ali, emboldened by grief attributable to his sister’s killing. “We don’t care about what occurs to us. Proper now, the regime is killing extra Iranians and persons are listening to us.”

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