Canadian-Iranian human rights advocate says the Iranian community here is happy about the death of Iran’s president.
Fred Farhad Soofi, a human rights advocate and member of Amnesty International says the Iranian community is “celebrating” the death of Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash Sunday.
Soofi says Raisi had falsely ordered his brother to be executed in the 1980s, and he would have personally preferred if Raisi was alive and held accountable at the court of justice for his “criminal” actions, but in Canada, the rest of the community is happy that he has died.
“They are happy because he was one of the people who ruled in Iran, who had power, money and connections with Russia and China,” he said. “Providing missiles to Russia to attack Ukraine, they are constantly doing criminal acts.”
Soofi says Iranians in Canada are disappointed with European leader’s actions towards the event. He says European leaders don’t have to be sorry for Raisi’s death because he was the “butcher of the century.”
“He wasn’t an ordinary person,” he said. “He was hated by Iranians.”
He says some Iranians who are happy about Raisi’s death used to be political prisoners who came to Canada for a better life, running away from the Iranian regime.
“I don’t blame them because they’re happy, you’re someone whose punisher has died,” he said.
“Some people don’t say it publicly because they’re so scared of that regime.”
He says, many educated and wealthy people also moved to Canada, because they had no freedom of speech, and no opportunities to exercise basic human rights.
“Human beings need freedom, when you don’t have it it doesn’t matter how much money you have,” he said.
Soofi says there were hardly any Iranians when he first moved to Canada but now the community is growing and politicans in Canada should pay attention and take the right action towards Iran’s regime.
“The Iranians remember which country took action towards the criminal when they were in power,” he said.
“Please do something right, so Iranians remember you and your government took action upon abuse of human rights.”
-With files from Shravan Raghavan.