US’ Sanctions Lunacy Virus Spreading to Its Allies: Iranian Spokesman
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Slamming Canada’s recent sanctions against a number of Iran’s news media outlets as a violation of the Iranian nation’s basic rights, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Iran said the US government’s “sanctions lunacy” has become a virus that is rapidly infecting its friends.
In a post on his Instagram account on Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani described the US government’s “sanctions lunacy” as a virus that is rapidly spreading to the friends of Washington.
Deploring the sanctions that Canada has recently imposed on Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, Keyhan newspaper, Nournews, Fars News Agency, and a number of IRIB officials, the spokesman said this is not the first time Canada has sanctioned the Iranian major media outlets and journalists, as it has already added Press TV in its sanctions list.
“From the viewpoint of the government of Canada and its anti-Iranian Western allies, the Iranian nation, apart from (being under) the economic sanctions, has no right to express its opinions and ideas, unless it would speak like them and in their cultural language, such as ‘Iran International’, ‘Manoto’ etc.,” Kanaani added, referring to two London-based anti-Iranian televisions.
The sanctions against the Iranian media outlets and journalists is a violation of the Iranian nation’s basic right to express its voice and opinion, and reveals that the Western advocacy for the freedom of information and freedom of speech is nothing but a hollow slogan, he added.
Kanaani also lashed out at the West for resorting to the very same values in order to justify the desecration of religious and holy sanctities.
“The move to resort to force and sanctions to prevent the voice of others from being heard by a country whose human rights claims have deafened the world is not so surprising,” he added.
Canada is used to apartheid behaviors, a proof of which is the discovery of mass graves of indigenous children in that county, Kanaani stated, adding that Ottawa has now launched “media apartheid”.
“When slogan is unmasked and logic becomes weak, there is no option but resorting to force and sanction,” the Iranian spokesperson noted, adding, “Sanction has become the international language of the US and its allies.”