CANADA GAVE VISA TO IRANIAN VP'S SON

Living in B.C. despite nations' tense relations

Canada's relations with Iran are not exactly smooth these days.

The countries ended diplomatic relations in 2012, Ottawa is still pushing for compensation after Tehran shot down an airliner packed with Canadians, and 41 Iranian officials are subject to sanctions in this country.

But the son of one of the regime's top officials — a woman closely connected to her nation's ruling clerics — has been living quietly in

B.C., developing virtual private network (VPN) software that's popular in his home country, though criticized for its security flaws.

The story — broken recently by Swiss-based Iranian journalist Abdollah Abdi — raises difficult questions about who Canada should admit from a nation that's been widely criticized for human rights abuses, and caused the deaths of dozens of Canadian air passengers.

Some Iranian-canadians and other opponents of the regime argue Hamid Rezazadeh definitely shouldn't have got in, especially when Ottawa has denied visas to other Iranians with no link to the government.

And they note that he's not unique. Tehran's former police chief — accused of various human rights abuses — was spotted in the Toronto area earlier this year, while a great-granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini, late founder of the Islamic Republic, went to university in Ontario.

Rezazadeh's mother, Ensieh Khazali, is one of Iran's 12 vice-presidents, responsible for women and family affairs. She said recently her son was developing Iran's technical knowledge-base and would be coming home soon.

He was luckier than one group of Iranians — certain loved ones of people killed in the 2020 downing of flight PS752 over Tehran. The relatives were denied visas to fly here for memorial services last year, says Toronto-area dentist Hamed Esmaeilion, whose own wife and daughter died in the crash.

“Why has Canada become a safe haven for these people ... if the families of the victims can't come to Canada to gather their daughter's or son's belongings?” asked Esmaeilion. “Why are the doors wide open?”

Rezazadeh could not be reached for comment.

Aidan Strickland, a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, said privacy rules bar Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) from divulging any details about Rezazadeh's case.

But she said the government judges each visa request on its individual merits, not where the person comes from.

“Canada does not limit the number of temporary resident visa applications that are accepted from any country,” said Strickland by email. “Temporary resident visa applications are considered on a case-by-case basis on the specific facts presented by the applicant.”

The range of factors considered by immigration officers include whether the person is likely to leave when the visa expires, the reason for their visit and whether he or she poses a threat to national security, she said.

As well as being appointed last year as women's affairs vice-president, Khazali is the daughter of the late Abolghasem Khazali, a hard-line cleric who chaired the powerful Guardian Council that oversees Iranian politics.

According to a profile by the anti-regime National Council of Resistance of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini himself presented a sermon at the woman's wedding.

After Abdi ran his first story indicating that her son, Rezazadeh, lived in Canada, another Iranian-language news site, Didar News, quoted the vice-president's brother, Mehdi Khazali, as confirming the information.

Then Khazali herself tweeted about the situation, saying her son was on a temporary work trip to develop Iran's computer-related knowledge base.

“Fortunately, this work project is nearing completion and he will return to the country in the coming months,” the vice-president wrote, according to a Google translation. “He is married and independent, but they never intended to emigrate.”

Online listings describe Rezazadeh as “software manager” of Betternet, which produces a VPN that can be downloaded for free. Abdi's report suggested that Betternet is popular in Iran, where access to the internet is tightly restricted. Among other things, such networks are supposed to allow users to circumvent government censorship.

But online reviews of the software have not been kind, with several recommending against its use. “Betternet's Free VPN isn't safe or reliable,” concluded expert Simon Migliano in a review updated last month.

Among the problems, he pointed to a 2016 paper by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of New South Wales in Australia that found Betternet had the highest number of tracking libraries — which collect user data to sell to advertisers and other third parties — among the 283 VPNS examined. Betternet also ranked high in a measurement of malware embedded in the program, the paper said.

Migliano said the company has not responded to those concerns. Betternet could not be reached for comment.

Alireza Nader, a Washington, D.c.-based scholar and Iran critic, conducted a research project recently for the conservative Foundation for Defence of Democracies on Iranian interference in Canada. He concluded that cases made public are “the tip of the iceberg,” with many other former officials and even intelligence agents settling in Canada.

Such people actually pose a threat to vocal critics of the regime here, Nader suggested.

Last year, the FBI intercepted an alleged Iranian plot to kidnap Iranian-american journalist Masih Alinejad and three Canadian critics of the regime. Police say they stymied another scheme more recently to assassinate Brooklyn-based Alinejad.

“It just amazes me that the Trudeau government would allow this kind of infiltration into Canadian society,” Nader said.

The movement of regime figures and their family members to Western countries is galling for those still in Iran, too, said Mariam Memarsadeghi, a D.c.-based fellow with the Macdonald-laurier Institute.

“Democratic countries like Canada need to wake up to the fact they are being used by the world's most brutal regime as a safe haven,” she said. “While they enforce these medieval, draconian laws on the people, their own children are free to live without the hijab, living Western lifestyles.”

That such individuals can come to Canada is infuriating for a Toronto-based scientist from Iran who says she earned a PHD here, and now as a Canadian citizen does cutting-edge artificial-intelligence work in the Toronto area. She said one of her brothers has repeatedly been denied visitor and study visas.

She said she has many friends of Iranian descent whose family members have also been unable to obtain visitor visas.

“I really can't understand the logic,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “It's very disheartening to see.”

IT AMAZES ME THAT THE

TRUDEAU GOVERNMENT WOULD ALLOW

THIS KIND OF INFILTRATION.