Hamed Esmaeilion: We will never forget what Iran did to Canadians

The regime murdered my wife and daughter and 83 other Canadians in the downing of Flight PS752. Do not let it reopen its embassy here

A few days after the 41st anniversary of the June 23, 1985 Air India bombing, while victims’ families were criticizing the government for failing to release recovered aircraft wreckage for use in museum exhibits, Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke of reopening Canada’s embassy in Iran and resuming direct diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic. His remarks suggested that he has forgotten not only the tragedy that claimed the lives of dozens of Canadians in the Air India bombing, but also the downing of Flight PS752 by the Islamic Republic of Iran six and a half years ago.

He may have forgotten the murder of the 176 passengers and crew members, as well as an unborn child, but Canada remembers that tragedy. The Canadian government formally recognizes the Islamic Republic of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. Over the past five decades, the Islamic regime has killed not only thousands of Iranians but has also stained its hands with the blood of dozens of Canadians.

The murder of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi in 2003, the suspicious death in custody of Iranian-Canadian environmentalist Kavous Seyed-Emami in 2018, the killing of 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents in the 2020 downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, and the killing of several Canadians during the horrific events of Jan. 8 and 9 this year are only a fraction of the Islamic Republic’s crimes, committed both against its own people and far beyond Iran’s borders. The world seems to believe it now faces a new Islamic Republic, despite the regime’s clearly premeditated, industrial-scale campaign of violence against protesters across Iran last January.

Some credulous western politicians appear to imagine that, after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, Iran will become more like a post-Stalin Soviet Union or a post-Mao China, without reckoning with the uniquely malign ideological nature of this regime. Many of us in the victims’ families did not support the recent (and apparently ongoing) war between the United States and Iran. At the same time, we regard negotiations with this regime as an affront to justice and a betrayal of the innocent lives it has taken.

For six and a half years, diplomats from the four states affected by the downing of Flight PS752 have repeatedly lined up to shake hands with Islamic Republic officials and negotiate financial compensation. We, who have been denied every means of securing justice for our loved ones, opposed those negotiations. We said then, and we say now: justice is not negotiable.

And we vehemently oppose any notion to reopen the embassy of this criminal regime in Canada. Over the past 18 months, the prime minister has not attended a single event dedicated to the victims of the Islamic Republic’s crimes. Other members of his government attended the sixth anniversary commemoration of the downing of Flight PS752, but he chose not to be there.

During the events of Jan. 8 and 9, the Iranian-Canadian community did not receive the solidarity it needed from him. Now, while the blood of many victims stains the streets of cities across Iran and thousands of families around the world face endless grief, he speaks of the need to engage with this regime and restore diplomatic relations in order to protect Canadians’ rights. The families of Flight PS752 victims continue to be targeted by the regime.

Even now, they face intimidation and persecution, including arrest and the confiscation of their passports. Had the government used the legal tools at its disposal and sought provisional measures in the two active proceedings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Islamic Republic would never have dared to go this far. We have called neither for war nor for negotiation.

Our demand is simple: a fair and impartial trial that establishes the truth and delivers justice. Rather than advocating an impossible proposition that we, the victims’ families, will oppose with all our strength, the prime minister should attend memorial ceremonies for the victims of this regime. There, standing among grieving Canadian families, he may better understand what is at stake and find the resolve to press for accountability before international courts.

Anything else will mean trampling truth and justice under a naïve notion of diplomacy, one that has failed for half a century because it refuses to confront the Islamic Republic’s murderous ideology and inhumanity. Special to National Post Hamed Esmaeilion is a Toronto-area author, social activist and dentist who lost his wife, Parisa Eghbalian, and daughter, Reera Esmaeilion, in the downing of Flight PS752. He is a founder and former president and spokesman of The Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims.

He was featured in “752 Is Not a Number,” a Canadian documentary film about the downing of Flight PS752, directed by Babak Payami and released in 2022.