Canada should impose sanctions Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp. and other officials who are oppressing women engaged in peaceful protests against Iran’s discriminatory compulsory hijab laws, women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad said a hearing at the Canadian parliament in Ottawa.

Addressing the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Canadian House of Commons, during its Iran Accountability Week, Alinejad urged the lawmakers to take stronger measures against the Iranian regime.

“We want you to sanction all the oppressors,” said Alinejad, an exiled Iranian journalist, author activist and founder of the White Wednesday campaign for women’s freedom.

“When Iranian women are fighting back the oppressors and oppressive laws, they do not hesitate to raise their voices,” Alinejad said. “They risk their lives because they know freedom is not free.”

Alinejad was joined at another event organized by former attorney general Irwin Cotler, chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, to seek justice on behalf of people, often Canadian dual nationals, who have been used as diplomatic leverage by Iran’s leadership. Other speakers at the Wallenberg Center included Shaparak Shajarizadeh, who was sentenced to 20 years for leading protests for women’s rights, and was granted asylum in Canada with her son.

Sorce: Nationalpost