Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

In announcing the severing of Canada’s formal diplomatic relations with the government of Iran in 2012, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird described the Persian country of about 80 million people at the crossroads of Eurasia as "the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world". Iranian diplomats in Ottawa were declared “personae non gratae” and compelled to vacate their ambassadorial seat. The University of Lethbridge Professor of Globalization Studies, Dr. Anthony Hall, was recently invited to attend as a delegate to an international conference of Independent Thinkers and Film Makers in Iran’s capital city, Tehran. For several days the conference was a main focus of national news in the host country even as it was the subject of a rather vicious smear campaign mounted by the Anti-Defamation League in the United States and throughout an echo chamber of US news agencies including the Washington Post. While in Tehran, Professor Hall was interviewed with Farsi-language translation on o