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Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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Iran's welcome back

Here is one compelling statistic that should encourage us to reach out to Iran: Half of the country's 75 million citizens are under 35 (Ottawa Moves To Lift Sanctions, Normalize Relations With Iran – Jan. 27). By demographics, Iran is a very young country and, generally speaking, its youth do not like the hardliners who make up the regime. They crave economic opportunities. Previous attempts to elect reformers have been met with violent suppression.

As much as possible, we should show that generation that we support them. That would be a better solution to long-term peace than the sabre rattling and posturing typical of the Harper Conservatives. If our own election results tell us anything, it is that one should not mistake the character of an entire country as being the same as that of the people who happen to be in power.

Don Pyper, Toronto

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As an Iranian-Canadian lawyer and human-rights advocate, I am concerned that those enthused about sanctions relief largely fail to appreciate the role of economic pressure in countering the regime's horrific abuses of the Iranian people. We cannot forget that Tehran continues to stone women, execute gay citizens, and torture and imprison political opponents and religious minorities.

If our new government is to remain true to liberal values, it must apply targeted sanctions on Iranian officials and entities involved in terrorism abroad or human rights violations in Iran, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij militia. In opposition, the Liberals repeatedly called for Canada to sanction the IRGC. A closed embassy is a far more powerful statement than naive efforts to "engage" brutal theocracies.

Sayeh Hassan, Toronto

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Re Italy Hides Nudes From Iran-ian President (Jan. 27): Italy should stage a few public executions if it wants to make the Iran-ian President feel more at home.

Jacques Soucie, Newmarket, Ont.

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Mural outrage

Re Bronfman 'Outraged' Over School Mural (Jan. 27): I am the chair of York's Political Science Department, and will confess that before this I had not noticed the mural in the Student Centre, despite walking under it weekly in the fall term. While Mr. Bronfman is, of course, free to support students at York or not through his firm, it is unfortunate that he has chosen to withdraw that support around the public expression of politics through art.

Freedom of political expression is a vital democratic value, and one of the primary services the university provides is to foster that expression. If there is anywhere that that the unfettered expression of political views must be not only permitted but encouraged, it is at a university!

In case you think those views are encouraged from only one side of any debate, I might also note that having admired the mural on the way to my office Wednesday morning, I then passed a group of students in the main rotunda expressing their views at a table draped with a large Israeli flag.

David Mutimer, chair, Department of Political Science, York University

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Does the mural offend Paul Bronfman because it echoes the story of David and Goliath, albeit with a reversal of roles? Now it is a young Palestinian who is about to throw a stone, as David did, and a huge Israeli bulldozer destroying Palestinian homes, that is the Philistine giant – but in the modern telling, no miracle rescues Palestinians from bulldozers.

John Molgaard, St. John's

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As a graduate of York and Osgoode Hall Law School, I strongly support Paul Bronfman's decision to withdraw financial support from York. The mural vilifies Israel and creates a toxic atmosphere for Jewish students.

The Palestinian in the mural is holding rocks while staring at what is supposed to be an Israeli bulldozer. I have spoken with current Jewish students at York who have told me the mural makes them feel threatened on campus.

I will not be donating money to York until this hateful anti-Israel mural comes down.

Jonathan Mackenzie, Toronto

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Why not 'murder'?

On Tuesday, your editorial writers and columnists told us how reasonable it was that the Forcillo trial jury found the defendant not guilty of murder or manslaughter; now lawyer David Butt steps up the praise (A Brave And Thoughtful Jury – Jan. 27).

Indeed? An obviously troubled young man, yes, brandishing a small knife but at a distance, not moving forward. A number of police, already on the scene and acting responsibly, are waiting it out.

Then Constable James Forcillo arrives and fires several volleys into the youth who ends up on the ground, probably dead, a threat to nobody. Had Const. Forcillo left it there, one might have concluded that he realized he had overreacted but no, he fired more bullets into Sammy Yatim.

These two stages, taken together, in my mind show his deadly intent from the outset.

And that's not murder or at least manslaughter?

Jack Tennier, Toronto

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Political three-peat

In one day, we learned that the Department of Indigenous Affairs knowingly discriminated against First Nations children (Ottawa To Overhaul On-Reserve Welfare – Jan. 27), that the National Energy Board ignored its duties to police the pipeline industry (NEB Failing To Properly Track Compliance), and that an agency of Health Canada turned its back to the continued use of harmful and non-approved pesticides (Agency Allowed Risky Pesticides, Audit Finds). Whether it's a question of political malfeasance or bureaucratic lethargy, the new regime certainly has its hands full.

Ole Gjerstad, Montreal

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Energy eastward

Re Needed: A Referee, But Also A Leader (Jan. 27): You say Canada needs Energy East. As a student pursuing a career in energy systems engineering who is deeply afraid of the implications of climate change for my generation, I disagree.

The recent downturn in the oil sector has left thousands of Canadians – many of whom left their home communities in search of economic opportunity – without work. This slump in the price of oil is merely a foreshadowing of what we can expect when our global customers implement climate regulations that render demand for greenhouse-gas-intensive oil-sands crude obsolete.

The dollar has already fallen below 70 cents U.S. because of our close economic ties to the oil industry. We should not strengthen those ties by placing all our eggs in a basket we have already announced we intend to drop.

Sam Harrison, Toronto

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It's good news for Iran that Ottawa wants to lift sanctions. It's to be hoped Canada's oil-producing regions will soon get just as lucky.

David Brindle, Calgary

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You want Justin Trudeau to be referee, but call the game your way? But only after making the assessment process as credible as possible, of course. FIFA could learn a thing or two from you.

Phil Soubliere, Ottawa

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