(Ottawa) The Canadian government is punishing the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for their “barbarity”, including by issuing a ban on more than 10,000 officers and senior officers in Tehran.
Posted at 2:43 p.m.
Updated at 4:34 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, Ottawa intends “to massively expand the sanctions imposed under the Special Economic Measures Act and to strengthen its capacity “to combat money laundering and illicit financial activities”, said Justin Trudeau.
The dissatisfied Conservative Party
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.
“Today the Liberals announced that they still refuse to list the IRGC as a terrorist entity. It is reprehensible that they refuse to take this step,” denounced MP Pierre Paul-Hus in a written statement.
Prime Minister Trudeau argued 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 other options, and that none were ruled out.
The government is due to give more details on the mechanism of this measure next week. As for inadmissibility “for violation of human or international rights”, he invokes section 35 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
This is aimed at anyone who “occupies a position of higher rank […] within a government which, in the opinion of the minister, is engaged or has engaged in terrorism, serious or repeated violations of human rights or is committing or has committed genocide, a crime against humanity or a war crime”.
“It will not be easy”, concedes Trudeau
Professor Thomas Juneau, a specialist in Iran, recently explained that listing the regime’s armed wing on the list of terrorist entities was desirable “in principle”, but “unrealistic in practice”, because Ottawa already has its hands full with the sanctions it has decreed, in particular against Russia.
In this regard, Justin Trudeau seemed to want to play the franchise card.
“It won’t be easy,” he said. These are measures rarely used by Canada […]but we are going to do the job, because it is important for us, but also for all Canadians, that their government is there to [contrer] this barbaric regime and support Iranian women. »
A few days ago, the Canadian government imposed sanctions on 25 senior Iranian officials. These include Mohammed-Hossein Bagheri, Major General of the IRGC and Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and Major General Hossein Salami, Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC.
Nine Iranian entities, including Iran’s “morals police” and Evin prison, which houses political prisoners (and where Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in 2003), were also 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 made a splash on the planet: French artists expressed their solidarity with Iranian women by cutting locks of hair.
Swedish MP Abir Al-Sahlani also took part in the movement by cutting off one of her locks of hair in the middle of a speech in the European Parliament.