Tehran: Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman condemned Canada’s move to impose new sanctions against Iranian media outlets as following “US government’s sanction madness”.
“The US government’s sanction madness has turned into a virus swiftly being transferred to its friends,” Nasser Kanaani said in a post on his Instagram deploring the Canadian government’s new sanctions on multiple Iranian media outlets and pressmen, Xinhua news agency reported.
He said from the viewpoint of Canada and its Western anti-Iran allies, imposing economic sanctions is not enough and Iran should also be deprived of the “right to express its views and opinions, unless it would speak like them”.
He slammed the sanctions on the Iranian media and pressmen as a violation of the Iranian nation’s basic right to freedom of speech and information.
Aside from earlier sanctions against Iran’s English-language news network Press TV, Canada imposed new sanctions on Iran’s semi-official Tasnim and Fars news agencies, Kayhan newspaper, Nour News — an affiliate of the Supreme National Security Council, the former and incumbent heads of state IRIB TV as well as a reporter of the organization, according to Kanaani.
According to Global Affairs Canada, a government department, Canada on Wednesday imposed additional sanctions on six Iranian individuals and four entities for “participating in or enabling human rights violations against women and spreading propaganda.”
The new sanctions have been imposed after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in a Tehran hospital a few days after collapsing at a police station.
–IANS