Monsef visit to Iran in 2014 raises questions
Peterborough-Kawartha Liberal MP Maryam Monsef tried to move back to Afghanistan in 2014. Instead she visited Iran where she was encouraged to run for office here in Canada.
This is according to a French-language profile in Le Devoir written well before it was revealed Monsef was born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she claims she’s always believed.
In the story, Monsef says she couldn’t enter Afghanistan because “it was not safe”. Then once in Iran, she says, she worked with Afghan refugees and was “encouraged to en- ter politics” in Canada.
This visit to Iran - a country with incredibly strict entry and exit rules - raises serious red flags, according to immigration experts and some in the Iranian community.
In 2012, the Harper government severed diplomatic ties with Iran and closed the Iranian embassy in Ottawa. Due to this, travel between Canada and Iran became increasingly difficult.
In 2014, the Iranian regime made it even more difficult for Canadians who do not have status in Iran to travel there. Canadian citizens who do not hold Iranian passports were banned from visiting Iran except through state-sanctioned tours.
“It’s a bit frustrating, and some of it is intentional,” Guidy Mamann, a prominent immigration lawyer in Toronto, says of the restrictions.
“It’s manufactured red tape because Iran wants to retaliate,” said Mamann. “They want to send a signal to Ottawa that they don’t appreciate what Ottawa, diplomatically, has done to them.”
According to another source, with close ties to the Persian community in Toronto, it’s very unlikely that the Islamic Republic of Iran would grant a tourist visa to a single woman travelling on a Canadian passport.
“There is no question about that,” said Mamann, when asked whether it would be more difficult for a single woman to get a visa.
Monsef’s office failed to respond to repeated requests from Postmedia Network on how she was able to obtain a visa, what type of visa she travelled on and where the visa was issued. They did however, state that Monsef “is not, nor was she ever an Iranian citizen.”
Hamid Yazdan Panah, an Iranian-American immigration lawyer, human rights activist and expert on the Iranian regime, says this also raises questions about Monsef’s legal status in Iran.
“Depending on the circumstances of her birth in Iran, theoretically, she could be given an Iranian passport, making it much easier to travel there,” said Yazdan Panah.
But Monsef ’s very willingness to travel to Iran is more than meets the eye.
“As innocuous or as innocent as a simple trip to Iran may seem, the regime still pressures people. It is very deliberate about who they allow into the country,” said Yazdan Panah.
“Regardless of her status, whether she actually travelled on a tourist visa or if she was granted an Iranian passport, she had to have obtained some form of clearance from the regime in order to go back.”
“The Iranian regime always has an agenda,” Yazdah Panah adds. “And if they let someone into the country, it’s because it’s to their benefit.”
NOTE: See the link to the English translation of the Le Devoir interview at www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com.