Iran International
Two petitions are now underway to the Canadian government to prevent the granting of a visa to the son of Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, a former top Revolutionary Guard commander.
A Canadian Federal Court document has emerged on social media in the past few days, which indicates that in 2022, Es’haq Ghalibaf, filed for the judicial review of the processing time of his immigration application and the federal court’s Justice Norris ruled that his application should be granted.
“As proud Iranian-Canadians who stand for freedom and democracy in Iran, we find it unimaginable that Canada would consider welcoming the son of such a warmonger, who, along with his father and family, has allegedly participated in money laundering and other corrupt activities,” the petition said.
“Allowing members of the dictatorship in Iran and their affiliates to enjoy freedom in Canada while they suppress Iranians and ruin the economy and environment of that proud country is unacceptable,” it added.
The court document indicates that Ghalibaf’s son, a civil engineer, was invited in December 2018 to apply for admission to Canada as a permanent resident under the Express Entry federal skilled worker program and completed his application in February 2019.
The document also shows that Pierre Poilievre's office, who is the leader of the Conservatives in parliament, made “repeated inquiries” about the progress of Ghalibaf's application from the authorities.
Poilievre has advocated for imposing sanction on the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), may have been unaware of the applicant’s father’s close ties with the IRGC. However, as speaker of parliament, Ghalibaf is the third highest ranking official in the country, after Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi.
It is not clear how his case reached Poilievre and why he tried to help, when often thousands of immigration applicants are either denied or have to wait years to be granted entry.
The document shows that in October 2023, Ghalibaf applied to the Federal Court for an order to compel the minister of citizenship and immigration to render a decision on his application.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the applicant also named the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness as a respondent because agencies under his authority are responsible for security screening,” the document says, adding that these respondents oppose the application on the basis that the delay is reasonably explained by the need to conduct security screening.
Ahead of the upcoming elections, hardline rivals of his father have politicized the issue. The Iranian regime propagandist, conspiracy theorist, and Ghalibaf critic Ali-Akbar Raefipour urged the Speaker to explain why his son should be seeking permanent residency in a “hostile country” as Iranian hardliners call Canada.
Reminding Ghalibaf that in 2017, when he was running for president, he had said that his son only owned an old car, a motorcycle, and a small amount of money, Raefipour demanded that he also explain how much his son has invested in Canada and how he has afforded the costs of application for permanent residency and legal action against the Canadian government.
“We know about this matter due to the transparency of court cases in Canada, otherwise, Mr. Ghalibaf and his family have not given away any information,” he wrote.
“If Eshaq Ghalibaf enters Canada, it means cooperation with IRGC,” a regime critic told the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a tweet. “The money that Es’haq brings with him to Canada is the money of the Iranian people, the same people who are oppressed and killed by the mullahs' regime and by the IRGC.
“It is not clear what profitable work Es’haq Ghalibaf has done in less than six years, so that he already managed to obtain the financial resources required for Express Entry to Canada … and the immigration lawyer's fees,” moderate Rouydad24 website in Tehran wrote.
In April 2022 Ghalibaf’s critics accused him of hypocrisy for admonishing others for living a luxurious life, and telling Iranians they should support domestically made products. Ghalibaf had also urged tens of millions of Iranians suffering economic hardships to be patient when it was revealed that his daughter and wife had traveled to Turkey to buy luxury baby products for his yet unborn grandchild.
The revelation also caused resurfacing of other alleged corruption cases against the family including spending hefty sums on purchasing properties in Turkey and many called for his resignation. His supporters claimed rivals in intelligence agencies were behind the revelation.
Correction: The original version of this report wrongly said that Ghalibaf made repeated inquiries from Pollivier's office. The original document says that his office made inquiries. Also, the original version said that the lawmaker's office "allegedly provided a recommendation letter to Ghalibaf." This could not be verified and was deleted.
Abbas Mohammadian, the Islamic guidance ministry’s media and advertisement deputy defended the requirement as a measure to safeguard legal rights and ensure advertising compliance with regulations. However, skepticism persists regarding its broader implications, including identification of influencers and taxation of their earnings.
The regulation, applicable to both foreign and domestic social media platforms, has sparked criticism, especially in light of Iran blocking most major social media platforms, such as X, Facebook and Youtube.
“What license? All [foreign] social media applications are blocked … What are you going to do if they don’t [acquire one]?” a tweet asked the authorities.
Many suspect that besides controlling content of advertisements and ensuring they do not break the rules of Sharia such as the rules for hijab, the requirement is meant to be used for identifying bloggers and influencers as well as their content creators, photographers, models, and admins. Some of these individuals have high earnings for which they may not be paying taxes, because they are not officially employed.
“Who has given you the right to tax [Instagram] bloggers and require a license for their activities when you are the ones that have blocked Instagram,” another tweet told authorities.
All major social networks including Instagram, Facebook, X (former Twitter), YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp are blocked in Iran, but controls are readily sidestepped by VPNs (virtual private networks) and anti-filtering software. Nearly every Iranian with a smartphone has installed anti-filtering software that allows access to filtered applications and websites.
Instagram is the second most popular social platform in Iran after Telegram with over forty million users. Both platforms are used by millions of small and home-based businesses for marketing.
These small businesses, particularly those run from homes by women or small farms in rural areas, heavily rely on Instagram for advertising their products -- anything from handwoven rugs to herbs and vegetables grown in their rural gardens and duck eggs. They also use WhatsApp, through VPN, for communication with potential customers. Many of these small businesses that exponentially grew after the Covid pandemic have thousands of followers now.
A survey conducted by the state-run Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) in 2021 found that 73.6 percent of Iranians over the age of 18 use social media, including WhatsApp (64.1), Instagram (45.3), and Telegram (36.3). Only 4.8 percent reported that they use domestically developed platforms.
The ban on Instagram, the only social platform not blocked by authorities until then, was announced on September 21, 2022, a few days after anti-government protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police engulfed the country.
Despite restrictions for ordinary citizens, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had multiple accounts on Instagram and Twitter until last week when Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, removed his accounts on these platforms. Meta said this was based on its policy of denying its platforms to organizations and individuals that “proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence”.
The two, Edman Nafrieh (Adman Nafariyeh) and Ali Bayandarian, collaborated with Parsargad Bank to sell millions of dollars' worth of Iranian oil illegally, a common practice for the Islamic Republic meant to circumvent the US sanctions on its oil industry and banking sector.
The operation allegedly took place under the auspices of the Headquarters of Imam's Directive (Executive Headquarters of Imam's Order or simply Setad), a parastatal organization under direct control of the Supreme Leader. A committee known as the "Cover Committee," which includes key figures of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council purportedly issued credit lines to intermediaries for bypassing sanctions.
The Islamic Republic has numerous mechanisms in place through a wide range of entities and organizations to sell its oil via third parties to evade sanctions. The country has also started giving oil to state organizations, including the IRGC, as a way to boost their budgets without actually allocating any money to them. Such operations are usually carried out by a network of state bodies and businesspeople with close ties to the regime, who usually gain huge profits in the process. However, with every new administration in office, former assets become a liability and bear the brunt of the political games of the regime.
Edman Nafrieh, 43, who lives in an upmarket part of Tehran, is one of such businesspeople who were trusted by the Setad to sell Iranian oil. His real name, Arman, was changed to Adman in 2007 and later to Adrian, as he gradually whitewashed his Iranian origins. Finally in January last year, he changed his last name to Touran to complete his more Western cover image. Through a network of companies active in the field of energy in Tehran and Dubai, Nafrieh is still active in illegal sales of Iran’s oil as well as bitumen industry.
In one case in 2019, two senior figures of the cover committee – Yahya Alavi and Mohammad Mirmohammadi -- requested Parsargad Bank to issue a $500 million bank guarantee in the name of Nafrieh to sell the oil, which was under the control of the Setad. Apparently, he never paid back about $300 million of the oil sale proceeds.
He was designated by the US in November 2022 along with five other people and 17 entities in a crackdown on a sanctions evasion network that provided support to Iran’s proxy in Lebanon Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).
Ali Bayandarian, another member of the Setad’s oil smuggling network, was also sanctioned by the US in January 2020 as Washington designated four companies accused of purchasing Iranian oil and petrochemical products. Bayandarian was designated over his links to the companies.
Documents leaked by a cyberattack on the Iranian parliament’s media arm on Tuesday revealed the parliament's coordination with designated Iranian entities and individuals to facilitate their trade activities and conceal their identities and connections from international regulatory bodies.
Nafrieh and Bayandarian are just small cogs in Iran’s huge network in charge of keeping the flow of oil revenues around global sanctions.
Iran’s oil exports have been increasing in recent years, from a low of less than 500,000 barrels per day after the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran in 2019 to as high as over 1,500,000, a rise that regime officials attribute to measures to bypass the punitive measures rather than an honest interaction with the world.
One of the most well-known cases was former tycoon Babak Zanjani, who now faces execution for embezzling the proceeds of oil sales totaling around $3.5 billion. Zanjani was arrested and convicted in 2013 after Hassan Rouhani was elected president, but has always maintained his innocence and that the death sentence passed was "politically motivated."
Zanjani sold Iranian oil on behalf of the NIOC during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second term (2009-13) through an elaborate network of black-market dealers and money-launderers − particularly in the UAE, Turkey and Malaysia. He was subsequently sanctioned by the Council of the European Union in December 2012 and by the United States Treasury in April 2013.