Mehrzad Zarei began his two-week, 400-kilometre journey on Aug. 10 to the grave of his son, Arad Zarei, at Elgin Mills Cemetery in Richmond Hill, Ont., north of Toronto. His walk will end at the Prime Minister’s Office on Wellington Street on Thursday, where Zarey hopes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with him and the families of other victims of PS752 to receive a letter containing a list of demands, including his rank Islamic Revolutionary of Iran. Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of the Iranian military, as a terrorist group. In May 2021, the Ontario Superior Court ruled shooting down the plane was a “terrorist act”. Court later awarded $107 million to the families of the six victimsincluding Zarei. But, he said, “The families of PS752 … don’t need money. We need justice. We need the killers to understand that our government is standing.” The Prime Minister’s Office did not say whether it had received any communication from Zarey or whether Trudeau would meet with him. Arad Zarei was 17 when he died in PS752. The flight was shot down by Iranian missiles shortly after taking off from Tehran in January 2020. (Submitted by Mehrzad Zarei)
“My world is broken”
The flight departed from Iran’s capital, Tehran, on January 8, 2020, bound for Kyiv, Ukraine. Zarei’s 17-year-old son Arad was returning home after visiting his mother in Shiraz in southern Iran. Shortly after takeoff, the Boeing 737 was hit by two Iranian missiles. All 176 passengers and crew were killed, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents. All 176 passengers and crew on Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 were killed. There were 138 passengers with ties to Canada, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press) Zarei remembers talking to Arad before boarding the plane. He told his son to call when he landed in Kyiv, “so I know you’re safe.” The single father was working as a tractor driver that day. After returning from work, he opened his laptop to check the news. He had to read reports of the disaster several times before the reality sunk in. He turned off the laptop thinking “it’s not possible,” he recalls. He opened it again and compared the flight number in the crash reports with his son’s one more time. Zarei drove to Toronto’s Pearson Airport in the middle of the night to try to get answers, but found no one who could help him. When relatives in Iran confirmed the news, he knew he had lost his only child. “My world is shattered,” she said, reliving the moment. “I feel empty.” Zarei is still counting the days since then — it will be 960 when he arrives in Ottawa on Thursday. A vigil for the victims of PS752 in Toronto in December 2020. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
He calls for sanctions, a criminal investigation
The demands Zarei hopes to present to the Prime Minister echo appeals made by the families of PS752 victims since the tragedy. They include designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity, imposing sanctions on Iranian officials for human rights abuses, referring the case to the International Court of Justice and opening a criminal investigation into the killing of Canadian citizens on the flight. “The killers,” Zarei said, referring to Iranian officials, “the only language they understand is the language of sanctions, the language of power.” Iran has been largely reluctant to cooperate with other countries since the disaster, which the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has called an “act of terrorism.” (Reuters) He said he started his walk, despite his bad back and leg, in part because he believes more Canadian lives could be at stake. “If we don’t act, they will kill more and more.” Iran has been largely reluctant to cooperate with other countries in the wake of the disaster. In a statement, Jason Kung, a spokesman for Global Affairs Canada, said the International Coordination and Response Team — formed by Afghanistan, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom to pursue justice for the victims of PS752 — has determined “further efforts to Negotiations with Iran are futile at this time.” “We are now focused on the next steps to resolve this matter in accordance with international law,” he added. “We will not rest until the families get the justice, transparency and accountability from Iran that they deserve.” On January 8, 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down Ukraine International Air Force Flight PS752 in the skies over Tehran with two surface-to-air missiles. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press) Zarey has met with Prime Minister Trudeau twice before. On one of those occasions, she said Trudeau talked about the loss of his brother, Michel, who died in an avalanche while skiing in British Columbia in 1998. “I feel like he understands my pain,” Zarei recalls. However, he added, he no longer feels the federal government is doing enough to bring justice to the families who lost loved ones in PS752. “We should feel that the country is with us,” he said, “not that we are alone.”
