Iran International
The Canadian opposition has accused the government of bypassing its own rules after Iran International reported that an IRGC-linked Iranian football official was granted special permission to enter the country despite being inadmissible.
Iran International’s reporting was followed by political backlash in Ottawa, international coverage and Mehdi Taj being turned back within hours of landing in Canada.
Speaking to Iran International’s Eye for Iran, Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, said the case raised serious questions about who approved Mehdi Taj’s entry and why.
“We need to know who did it, when it happened, how it happened, why it happened, and why it’s never going to happen again,” Lantsman said.
Taj, president of Iran’s football federation, had been expected to travel to Vancouver for the FIFA Congress on April 30 at the Vancouver Convention Center.
Iran International previously reported that Taj was issued a Temporary Resident Permit, or TRP, a tool that allows Canadian authorities to admit a person who would otherwise be barred under immigration law.
Canada listed the IRGC as a terrorist entity in 2024, making people linked to the force inadmissible. Taj has longstanding ties to the Islamic Republic’s security establishment and previously served as an intelligence commander in the IRGC in Isfahan.
Lantsman said the permit showed that the issue was not simply a screening failure.
“Somebody actively made this decision to circumvent our own rules,” she said.
“I can’t believe that I work in a place with a minister who would issue a terrorist a permit.”
Taj was able to board a flight to Canada and land in Vancouver. He was sent back within hours, after Iran International’s reporting on the case had already become public.
That sequence has become central to the political fallout in Ottawa. Critics say the government acted only after the case drew public attention, while ministers have declined to discuss details, citing privacy rules.
Lantsman rejected that explanation in the podcast interview.
“We don’t give privacy to terrorists,” she said. “There is no privacy to people who are inadmissible to our country.”
The issue quickly reached Parliament.
Opposition MPs pressed ministers to explain how a person barred under Canada’s own rules received permission to enter the country.
At Thursday’s meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in Ottawa, Conservative MP Frank Caputo asked Immigration Minister Lena Diab how a person deemed inadmissible had been granted entry.
Caputo said “the rule of law demands transparency” and asked “who gave him a visa,” saying Iran International’s reporting had brought the case to public attention.
Prime Minister Mark Carney declined to comment on Taj’s case, citing privacy laws, but defended the government’s position on the IRGC.
“Members of the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guard rightly have been prohibited from entering this country and they will not enter this country,” he said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand suggested the permit may have been granted and later revoked, saying her understanding was that “there is a revocation of the permission” and that “it was unintentional.”
Lantsman said that response only deepened the need for answers.
“If they unintentionally gave him a permit, then we need to know how that happened and why it happened,” she said. “And if the unintentionality of it was about the revocation, that’s even worse.”
The controversy has turned a single immigration decision into a broader political test of Canada’s handling of officials tied to the Islamic Republic.
Although Canada has formally banned the IRGC, Temporary Resident Permits allow authorities to override inadmissibility in certain cases. Taj’s case has raised questions about how such exceptions are approved and what safeguards exist when national security concerns are involved.
The controversy also comes as anger continues over the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on protests in January, with the IRGC at the center of the state response. Rights groups and Iranian activists have described the violence as among the deadliest episodes in modern Iranian history.
At least three Iranian footballers have been killed during the unrest. Ali Karimi, Iran’s former national team captain, has criticized FIFA’s silence and called on the organization to condemn the killing of athletes and speak out against the crackdown.
Lantsman said the opposition has submitted formal questions in Parliament and would continue pressing the government for details.
“This cannot happen,” she said. “We’re going to continue to keep the pressure on.”
The case has also drawn wider attention beyond Canada. The New York Times, USA Today, Agence France-Presse and The Canadian Press have covered the incident, citing Iran International’s reporting.
For Lantsman, the central issue remains who approved the permit and why.
“Somebody in Canada, somebody very high up in the ministry, decides that it’s in public interest of Canada to have this person here,” she said.
The government has yet to publicly identify who authorized the permit, why it was issued, or what measures are being taken to prevent a similar case.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.
