Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the shooting a “terrorist attack on Muslims,” and offered his condolences.
“While authorities are still investigating and details continue to be confirmed, it is heart-wrenching to see such senseless violence. Diversity is our strength, and religious tolerance is a value that we, as Canadians, hold dear,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau called the attack “cowardly” in a tweet earlier in the night, ABC News reported.
In a statement, Farhadi said he had planned to attend the Feb. 26 ceremony in Los Angeles and while there bring attention to a decision he called “unjust.” But the executive order signed by President Trump on Friday presented “ifs and buts which are in no way acceptable to me even if exceptions were to be made for my trip.”
Trump’s executive order blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It also suspended entry of all refugees for 120 days and barred Syrian refugees indefinitely.
Taraneh Alidousti, the leading actress of Farhadi’s The Salesman, had earlier boycotted the Oscars ceremony, describing the ban introduced by Trump as a “racist” one.
Here is Mr. Farhadi’s statement, published in New York Times:
I regret to announce via this statement that I have decided to not attend the Academy Awards Ceremony alongside my fellow members of the cinematic community.
Over the course of the past few days and despite the unjust circumstances which have risen for the immigrants and travelers of several countries to the United States, my decision had remained the same: to attend this ceremony and to express my opinions about these circumstances in the press surrounding the event. I neither had the intention to not attend nor did I want to boycott the event as a show of objection, for I know that many in the American film industry and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are opposed to the fanaticism and extremism which are today taking place more than ever. Just as I had stated to my distributor in the United States on the day the nominees were announced, that I would be attending this ceremony along with my cinematographer, I continued to believe that I would be present at this great cultural event.
However, it now seems that the possibility of this presence is being accompanied by ifs and buts which are in no way acceptable to me even if exceptions were to be made for my trip. I would therefore like to convey via this statement what I would have expressed to the press were I to travel to the United States. Hard-liners, despite their nationalities, political arguments and wars, regard and understand the world in very much the same way. In order to understand the world, they have no choice but to regard it via an “us and them” mentality, which they use to create a fearful image of “them” and inflict fear in the people of their own countries.
This is not just limited to the United States; in my country hardliners are the same. For years on both sides of the ocean, groups of hardliners have tried to present to their people unrealistic and fearful images of various nations and cultures in order to turn their differences into disagreements, their disagreements into enmities and their enmities into fears. Instilling fear in the people is an important tool used to justify extremist and fanatic behavior by narrow-minded individuals.
However, I believe that the similarities among the human beings on this earth and its various lands, and among its cultures and its faiths, far outweigh their differences. I believe that the root cause of many of the hostilities among nations in the world today must be searched for in their reciprocal humiliation carried out in its past and no doubt the current humiliation of other nations are the seeds of tomorrow’s hostilities. To humiliate one nation with the pretext of guarding the security of another is not a new phenomenon in history and has always laid the groundwork for the creation of future divide and enmity. I hereby express my condemnation of the unjust conditions forced upon some of my compatriots and the citizens of the other six countries trying to legally enter the United States of America and hope that the current situation will not give rise to further divide between nations.
Asghar Farhadi, Iran
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the Swiss ambassador has been given an official note by Director General of Foreign Ministry for American Affairs Mohammad Keshavarz-Zadeh in protest at the controversial order Donald Trump signed on Friday.
The Swiss diplomat has been told that the US ban on Iranian travelers under “baseless and discriminatory pretexts” is “unacceptable and runs counter to human rights conventions” and to a treaty of amity, economic relations, and consular rights that Iran and the US signed on August 15,1955, Qassemi noted.
The Iranian spokesman also said the Swiss ambassador has been reminded that Iranians themselves have been victims of terrorist groups that enjoy the backing of the US, and that no Iranian national has been involved in any terrorist attack conducted by extremist groups.
Iranian residents in all countries are among the most law-abiding individuals, he stressed.
Qassemi went on to say that the Swiss ambassador said he would immediately let the US Department of State know about Iran’s protest.
The new executive order by Trump bars all persons from seven countries from entering the US for 90 days and suspends the US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days. The countries impacted are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
A number of Iranian visa-holders have been deported from the US airports since Friday.
Addressing a ceremony in Tehran, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari underlined the IRGC has two striking features: It is both revolutionary and popular.
According to a Farsi report by Mizan, he said the IRGC is facing the threat of bureaucratization, and noted that a prompt needs analysis coupled with a plan to detect and settle issues can help remove such threats.
The top general said, “We really need to take Islamic and religious precepts on board in all affairs.”
“After the [1979 Islamic] Revolution, we didn’t move on the path that we should have. Rather, we went for other sciences with non-revolutionary principles,” said the top commander.
As a case in point, the general noted, the same sciences were taught in Iranian universities after the Revolution that had been taught during the former Pahlavi regime.
Elsewhere in his remarks, General Jafari said the IRGC has based its activities on four principles: Religion, piety, revolutionary understanding and revolutionary action.
The senior commander further highlighted that the IRGC is a science-based institution in all arenas, especially when it comes to humanities and military sciences.
“For instance, the military science falls into different categories, including the classical war science also known as the classical military science,” he noted.
“This is a wide-ranging science and the result of experience gained from different war techniques; this science was used in the Iranian Army before the Islamic Revolution,” the high-ranking commander said.
The general noted that the classical military science was based on non-revolutionary principles, and thus could help the Iranian military only during the first three months of the Iraqi attack on Iran in the 1980s.
He said the very same science was the reason behind the failure of a major operation code-named Howayzeh. In the wake of that failure, then Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr, who was a traitor and later fled the country, spoke of holding talks with then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hossein, said the general.
It was then when it became clear that the classical military science was a nonstarter, he said.
After that, the general said, Iran used military techniques based on revolutionary principles, which enabled the Iranian military to defend the country against the Iraqi army and emerge victorious.
He concluded by saying that the IRGC is in dire need of think tanks, and added the IRGC should serve as a role model for the people and society.
Fars News Agency has released photos of Syrian people watching the football match in Aleppo, the city recently liberated by the Syrian Army from rebels’ control.
Donald Trump’s executive order to close America’s borders to travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries caused chaos on Saturday and Sunday, as multiple people who had flown to the US were held at major airports while others were barred from boarding flights.
Many Americans flocked to airports to protest at the decision. Here are IRNA’s photos of nationwide protests held across the United States in protest at Trump’s ban on entry of citizens from seven Muslim states to the US:
The official in charge of West Azarbaijan Province’s emergency told ISNA that 15 people were entrapped in an avalanche in Sardasht.
“From these 15 people, 4 lost their lives, 6 were hospitalized, and 2 are still missing,” he noted.
The Iraqi parliament approved a law last year to give full legal status to fighters from Popular Mobilization Units, who have joined forces with government forces in counter-terrorism operations against Daesh militants across the country.
The call to ban US nationals came in a statement published by its spokesman, Ahmed al-Assadi, Reuters reported.
Trump on Friday signed an executive order that will curb immigration and the entry of refugees from some Muslim-majority countries. He separately said he wanted the US to give priority to Syrian Christians fleeing the civil war there.
Politicians, rights groups and activists have criticized Trump’s crackdown on refugees.
The unidentified woman, whose name and age were not disclosed, reportedly works in the Research Institute of Emergency Medicine in St Petersburg, Russia.
The picture of the corpse is thought to have been during her studentship and shows her posing with three friends, Daily Mail reported.
The doctor is picture holding the corpse’s head and commented on the image, saying: ‘You could take a piece, if nobody was watching. Yeah, we did not get bored then. What good days they were, I miss them.’
Many online commenters did not see the funny side of the pictures.
Netizen ‘Irina Igoreva’ commented: ‘Maybe you think it’s funny, but it’s not. What if the relatives of the dead man you’re posing with saw this photo? Now put yourself in their place.’
And ‘Lena Volk’ added: ‘I think you crossed the line and should be punished.’
The governor asked citizens to congregate at the Grand Musalla (prayer hall) of Tehran at 8:30 Monday morning to attend the funeral service and pay tribute to the martyrs.
The Plasco building in downtown Tehran caught fire on January 19 morning and came down after four hours, blockading a number of people under the debris.
More than 20 people, including 16 firefighters, were killed in the incident.
In a message after the incident, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei lauded the courageous firemen who suffered harm during the operation to fight the fire at Plasco building, saying, “The valor and sacrifice of those firefighters who were seriously harmed as they tried to rescue people and went through a difficult test while making committed sacrifice, fill one’s heart with (a sense of) admiration and praise as well as concern and sorrow.”
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