(Ottawa) The Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are blacklisted by Ottawa, which means that more than 10,000 officers and senior officers will be banned from entering Canada forever.
Posted at 2:43 p.m.
Updated at 2:57 p.m.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the action on Friday, taken under the “most stringent” provision of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in a last-minute press conference.
Concretely, this means that “50% of the top leaders of the IRGC, therefore more than 10,000 officers and senior officers will be banned from Canada forever”, explained the Prime Minister, insisting on the severity of the measure.
“It is a measure that has been used only in the most serious circumstances against regimes that have perpetrated war crimes and genocides, such as in Bosnia and Rwanda”, he pointed out, asserting that the ” Iranian women’s message of hope and freedom” was heard in Canada.
Speaking after him in the foyer of the House of Commons, the Deputy Prime Minister branded the Iranian regime a “terrorist”, a “misogynist” and a “theocrat”, weighing every word she uttered at the microphone.
PHOTO SEAN KILPATRICK, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, Chrystia Freeland
In addition to this flagship sanction, the government “intends to massively expand the sanctions imposed under the Special Economic Measures Act to hold those most responsible for Iran’s reprehensible behavior to account,” said Justin Trudeau.
Finally, Ottawa will strengthen its ability “to combat money laundering and illicit financial activity, as well as crack down on foreign interference in order to protect Canadians of Iranian descent and other communities here in Canada,” he decided.
Applicability of sanctions
Friday’s announcement does not respond to the specific request of the Conservative Party, which is crying out for the inclusion of the IRGC on Canada’s list of terrorist entities. The team has been doing it for years, but the events of the past few weeks in Iran have pushed them to raise their voices.
Prime Minister Trudeau nevertheless pleaded that this was the way to go. The Canadian Criminal Code, he argued, is not “the best tool” for punishing states and state entities. He assured that Ottawa would continue to look into options, and that none were ruled out.
The government is due to give more details on the mechanism of this measure next week.
An expert from Iran recently explained to The Press than sanctioning the armed wing of the Iranian regime as a whole is not as simple as it seems, among other things for reasons of applicability of these penalties — the government has already had its hands full with the sanctions it has decreed, in particular against Russia.
“The force is made up of 150,000 people, and there are also thousands of veterans who have been conscripted,” illustrated Thomas Juneau, associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa, who advocates targeted sanctions.
A few days ago, the Trudeau government imposed sanctions on 25 senior Iranian officials. These include IRGC Major General Mohammed-Hossein Bagheri and the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces; Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC.
Nine Iranian entities, including Iran’s so-called “morals police” and Evin prison, which houses political prisoners (and where Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in 2003), have also been sanctioned by Ottawa.
A protest movement has been raging in Iran since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten to death in Tehran for exposing locks of her hair in public. It has spread to the four corners of the planet: women express their solidarity with Iranian women by cutting locks of their hair.
Senior officials in Canada?
Like the Conservative Party, the Iranian community in Canada is calling on the Liberal government to sanction the IRGC. This is a request from relatives of those killed when the Iranian military shot down flight PS752 in January 2020.
Spokesperson for the bereaved families, Hamed Esmaeilion, told the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Thursday that Canada had become a safe haven for Iranian regime officials.
“It is a great concern for the Iranian people,” he told the committee members.
The downing of flight PS752 near Tehran killed 176 people, most of whom were on their way to Canada, via Ukraine. No one has been held responsible for the tragedy.
With The Canadian Press