Salman Sima has been active for few years now in the Iranian-Canadian community. However, many Iranians in Canada know Salman for his extreme and aggressive behavior at Iranian community rallies and gatherings, his support for sanctions against Iran and his daily defamation against anyone who does not agree with his political views.
The purpose of this report is to provide some clarification regarding Salman Sima and his activities and to raise awareness about his destructive behavior against hardworking activists in the Iranian-Canadian community who have been victim of his defamation attacks. Salman Sima introduces himself as an activist but it seems that his true goal is to create division and promoting hatred among Iranian-Canadians.
A Pro-Sanction Trump Supporter
Salman is a supporter of sanctions against Iran. In December 2016, only weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Salman Sima together with 29 others signed a joint letter to then President Elect Trump urging him to impose sanctions on Iran and to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement as soon as he takes control of the US administration. The reaction of the vast majority of the Iranian community to this letter was very negative. Major newspapers from all political factions published articles against this letter and activists raised their voice on social media.
In Canada, Salman Sima has been supporting virtually every policy and sanction proposed by the Conservatives against Iran. Sima even started a campaign of attacks against the Iranian Canadian Congress (ICC) and targeted their board members and executives one by one as soon as the ICC started advocating for reopening of the embassies and once they started speaking against sanctions on Iran that hurt ordinary Iranians and Iranian-Canadians.
Even when Senator Linda Frum’s speech at the Senate of Canada calling Iranians a “malign nation” sparked outrage in the Iranian-Canadian community, Salman Sima supported Frum and labeled those who were complaining about her discriminatory comments as supporters of the Iranian government!
Salman Sima’s unclear past and his family ties to the Iranian government
While Salman presents himself in Canadian conservative circles as an Iran opposition figure, and calls anyone opposing his views a supporter or an agent of the Islamic Republic, there is evidence that suggests Salman Sima used to be a supporter of Hezbollah back in Iran.
Right after Salman and his team wrote to Trump calling for the US to impose sanctions on Iran and withdraw from the nuclear agreement, a couple of Sima’s former classmates in Iran published photos and tweeted about the times that he used to “wave the Hezbollah flag” in Iran.
Salman Sima is a member of a new Iranian opposition group called “Farashgard” or “Iran Revival.” In their mission statement the group calls all political factions inside Iran, including reformists, traitors and a “criminal cult” and calls for regime change in Iran. In their mission statement they also urge the US Administration and other governments to help their “regime change” agenda by imposing sanctions and a pressure campaign against Iran.
On his social media pages Salman calls anyone against sanctions on Iran or anyone opposing his “regime change” agenda a “traitor”, “agent of the regime”, “lobbyist for the Islamic Republic”. However, Salman Sima has never talked about his family members in Iran and their very close ties to the ruling establishment in the Iranian government. For the sake of transparency and to demonstrate Mr. Sima’s hypocrisy we reveal public information we have found online about his family members in Iran.
Salman’s sister Saedeh Sima is in the reformist camp and currently serves as the president of a government task force that operates within the office of the president of the Islamic Republic Hassan Rouhani. The organization’s focus is on women and youth. Here is a video of Saedeh Sima’s speech in Iran:
Saedeh Sima is also among the founders of a reformist political party in Iran called Neday-e-Iran. The head of Neday-e-Iran is Seyed Mohammad Sadegh Kharazi. Kharazi has been involved in the Iranian government in different roles since the revolution. During Iran-Iraq war Kharazi served in the High Defense Council. He later served as deputy minister of foreign affairs, Iranian ambassador to the UN and ambassador to France.
While Saedeh Sima spends her time and energy working toward step by step improvements and reforms inside Iran, her brother Salman and his group “Farashgard” or “Iran revival” brand any activist who tries to improve conditions in Iran and is against Salman’s “regime change” agenda an agent of the “corrupt cult” that steal “Iran’s oil revenue”.
Salman Sima’s other sister, Somayeh Sima, is the CEO of Sepehr-e-Door-Kaav or Satellite Driven Knowledge (SDK). According to their website SDK has partnerships with the Iran National Space Administration (INSA) and Iran’s Department of Environment.
Salman Sima has not mentioned any information about his job and professional life on his social media accounts and we were unable to find any information online. We are not aware whether or not Salman has any financial ties to his family inside Iran.
Salman Sima targets Iranian-Canadian activists who do not agree with his politics
If you visit Salman Sima’s twitter page you find his regular daily posts targeting activists in the Iranian-Canadian community and beyond. During the provincial election Salman Sima started a false rumor about an Iranian-Canadian NDP candidate, calling her the granddaughter of a major cleric in Iran. The IC Journal published a report on this tremendous lie manufactured by Salman Sima about Saman Tabasinejad.
In another tweet, Salman Sima targeted Iranian-Canadian Member of Parliament Majid Jowhari, who enjoys strong popularity among Iranian-Canadians because of his activities in supporting his fellow community members. However, as MP Jowhari supports the Liberal’s stated policy of constructive engagement and diplomacy with Iran, Salman Sima has labeled him as a supporter of the Iranian government and a “foreign agent”!
He even leads defamation campaigns against critics of the Iranian government who live inside Iran. In one of his posts he promotes a twitter campaign against Prof. Sadegh Zibakalam, who received DW’s 2018 Freedom of Speech Award. He calls Prof. Zibakalam a defender of the Iranian government. Prof. Zibakalam is famous for his critical views about the state of affairs in Iran and has delivered hundreds of speeches and participated in debates and interviews expressing his critical opinion about the policies of the Iranian government.
Salman’s extreme views are not limited to Iranian politics. His radical right wing mentality allows him even to target feminists in Western countries. In a comment he posted about a journalist who was complaining about Islamophobic comments posted by someone on Twitter who was claiming to work for the US government, Salman Sima wrote: “feminists are the female version of the mullahs!”
In another tweet that reveals his radical sexist views he says: “Feminism and everything related to it is bullshit. It is useless, same as religious rituals of entering the toilet with your right or left foot.”
These are only few examples of a long list of defamatory notes he has posted on his social media pages against Iranian and Iranian-Canadian leaders and activists.
Our community should be vigilant about these extreme and destructive figures
The activities of Salman Sima show that he has, either intentionally or unintentionally, promoted division and hatred among Iranian-Canadians. His false rumours and defamation against Iranian-Canadian activists only serve one purpose and that’s for Iranian-Canadians to always be suspicious of each other instead of uniting together for the betterment of our community. We should not allow Salman Sima and his like to shape the future of our community with their divisive and extreme agenda.
Note: we welcome any explanation or response from Salman Sima and will publish it. The purpose of this report is to raise awareness about Mr. Sima’s actions in our community.