Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing fierce criticism on social media for posting, then deleting, a tweet about Iran, which contained false information.

The tweet originally read: “Canada denounces the Iranian regime’s barbaric decision to impose the death penalty on nearly 15,000 protesters. It was on his official Twitter page for 12 hours before being deleted from his page. A similar social media post, saying Iran had sentenced 15,000 people to death as a “hard lesson” for the rebels, was also making the rounds on various platforms.

People on Twitter slammed the Prime Minister for playing a role in spreading false information.

The Prime Minister’s spokesperson responded to a request for comment on how such a Tweet might have been controlled.

“The post was informed by an initial report which was incomplete and lacked necessary context. For this reason, it has since been deleted,” the statement said.

“It was based on reports of serious concerns raised by international human rights advocates warning of possible future sentences, including the death penalty, imposed on thousands of Iranian protesters who have already been detained by the regime,” they added.

Since September, there have been widespread protests across Iran, following the death of a woman in police custody by the country’s death police for not following the strict rules of covering hair with a hijab.

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Iranian lawmakers insist that the country’s justice system “show no leniency” towards protesters. This week, one person was officially sentenced to death. According to CNN, more than 14,000 people have been arrested since September and at least 2,000 have been charged with participating in protests.

The prime minister’s spokesperson urged Canadians not to “lose sight of the fact that one person has already been sentenced to death” and that “dozens of protesters have been killed by regime security forces”.

“Our government continues to unequivocally support the Iranian people and is taking unprecedented action to hold the regime and its enablers accountable.”