The Canadian authorities on Wednesday designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group. File Picture by Abedin Taherenareh/EPA-EFE/ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH
June 20 (UPI) — Canada has listed Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Arms Corps as a terrorist entity underneath its Prison Code following years of mounting stress from Iranian Canadians and opposition lawmakers.
“The IRGC is now listed as a terrorist group in Canada,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada mentioned on X.
Minister of Public Security Dominic LeBlanc made the announcement Wednesday throughout a press convention, stating the transfer sends a “sturdy message” that Canada will use all of the instruments it has to fight the IRGC and its destabilizing actions.
“The Iranian regime has constantly displayed a whole disregard for human rights, each inside and outdoors Iran, in addition to a willingness to destabilize the worldwide rules-based order,” he mentioned.
“Our authorities will be sure that there is no such thing as a immunity for Iran’s illegal actions and its assist of terrorism.”
Based following Iran’s 1979 revolution, the IRGC is a paramilitary group that’s separate from Iran’s army. The U.S. Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle says it’s tasked with defending Iran’s Islamic regime with its Quds Drive being chargeable for “covert deadly actions outdoors Iran.”
The IRGC additionally backs Tehran proxy militias committing destabilizing actions all through the Center East, together with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas within the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Canada’s Iranian diaspora group has a inhabitants of greater than 200,000, in response to authorities knowledge, and the motion to checklist the IRGC as a terrorist group has grown since January 2020 when Ukrainian Airways Flight PS752 was shot down shortly after take off close to Tehran.
The flight was hit amid rising tensions between the USA and Iran, which had hours earlier launched a retaliatory assault at U.S. bases in Iraq over the American assassination of the then head of the IRGC, Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
All 176 on board had been killed. Fifty-five had been Canadians with one other 30 being everlasting residents.
The Affiliation of Households of Flight PS752 Victims, which has been calling on Canada to designated the IRGC, mentioned Wednesday that it thanks Ottawa and all those that introduced in regards to the itemizing.
“Itemizing the IRGC as a terrorist group has at all times been one of many most important calls for of the Affiliation over the previous years,” it mentioned in a press release.
Officers mentioned the designation makes inadmissible hundreds of Iranian authorities officers whereas barring Canadians from conducting companies with the IRGC.
International Affairs Minister Melanie Joly warned Canadians through the press convention that the Tehran regime could retaliate following the designation, and is urging them to not journey to Iran.
“We have been saying for years now to Canadians: Do not go to Iran. With this choice immediately, there’s a heightened danger of arbitrary detention in Iran. So, my message is obvious for individuals who are in Iran proper now, it is time to come again residence. And for these planning to go to Iran, do not go,” she mentioned.
The announcement comes after the Canada Home of Commons in Might unanimously voted to undertake a report back to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group and to expel the 700 Iranian brokers reportedly working and residing within the nation.
Lawmakers with the opposition Conservative Occasion criticized the federal government for taking so lengthy to designate the IRGC, stating they’ve been urging Trudeau’s ruling Liberal Occasion to take action since 2018.
“The IRGC has been in a position to develop stronger on account of Trudeau’s inaction,” Conservative shadow overseas affairs minister Michael Chong and deputy Conservative get together chief Melissa Lantsman mentioned in a joint assertion.
The Liberal officers rebutted that they adopted the bureaucratic course of to make such a willpower, which takes time.
“The choice to checklist a company underneath Canada’s Prison Code as a terrorist entity is not made due to feedback on Twitter or query interval,” LeBlanc mentioned, including that it’s executed primarily based on the recommendation of Ottawa’s safety providers whereas taking overseas coverage issues into consideration.
“It is a deliberative course of.”
Iranian activist Masih Alinejad, who has been a goal of IRGC kidnapping plots, praised Canada for taking the proper step, however known as on Ottawa to implement the choice and to induce all G7 leaders to do the identical in addition to both arrest or expel the lots of of IRGC members within the nation.
“That is the demand of hundreds of thousands of Iranians,” she mentioned in a press release.
The US designated the IRGC as a overseas terrorist group in April 2019.