Ottawa cites the IRGC’s ties to Hamas and Hezbollah, accusing Iran of ‘full disregard for human rights’.
Canada has listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a “terrorist” entity and urged its residents in Iran to go away.
The Canadian authorities made the announcement on Wednesday, saying that the transfer will assist Ottawa with “countering terrorist financing”.
“The choice to listing the IRGC by the Legal Code itemizing regime sends a robust message that Canada will use all instruments at its disposal to fight the terrorist exercise of the IRGC, performed each unilaterally and in figuring out affiliation with listed terrorist entities equivalent to Hezbollah and Hamas,” the Canadian authorities mentioned in a press release.
There was no instant remark from Tehran.
For years, the opposition Conservatives in Canada have urged Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to blacklist the IRGC.
On Wednesday, Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister of public security, cited Iran’s human rights report as one of many causes behind the choice.
“The Iranian regime has constantly displayed an entire disregard for human rights, each inside and out of doors Iran, in addition to a willingness to destabilise the worldwide rules-based order,” LeBlanc mentioned in a press release.
“Itemizing the IRGC builds on the Authorities of Canada’s broader efforts to make sure that there isn’t any impunity for Iran’s illegal actions and its help of terrorism.”
International Minister Melanie Joly urged Canadians to not journey to Iran, citing a heightened danger of “arbitrary detention”.
“For these in Iran proper now, it’s time to come back again residence. For these planning to go to Iran, don’t go,” she advised a information convention.
The itemizing requires Canadian monetary establishments to freeze any IRGC property and prohibits Canadian residents from partaking in monetary dealings with the group.
America designated the IRGC as a “terrorist” group in 2019.
The IRGC, an elite pressure that operates with some autonomy and solutions on to Iran’s Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei, is an official department of the Iranian army.
Relations between Iran and Canada have been rocky for many years. Ottawa minimize diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2012, citing its nuclear programme and help for the embattled Syrian authorities of Bashar al-Assad.
The connection soured additional in 2020 after Iran shot down a aircraft with dozens of Canadian residents and everlasting residents on board.
The Ukraine Worldwide Airways flight was certain for Kyiv when it was hit with two missiles shortly after takeoff from Tehran on January 8, 2020.
The missile strike got here at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and the US. Hours earlier, the IRGC had focused US forces in Iraq after the assassination of Iranian Common Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad.
Iranian officers have mentioned the downing of the Boeing 737 was an accident attributable to human error in working an air defence system.
Final yr, an Iranian courtroom issued preliminary sentences for 10 unnamed individuals accused of enjoying a task within the incident. They included the operator of the defence system.
Iran has additionally set compensation at $150,000 for every of the victims’ households, and it mentioned final yr that it had begun the funds.
However in a case on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice, Canada accused Iran of failing “to conduct an neutral, clear and honest felony investigation and prosecution in keeping with worldwide legislation”.
The itemizing of the IRGC comes because the Canadian authorities faces questions over its personal dedication to human rights in relation to its shut ties with Israel, which has been accused of rampant abuses in Gaza.