Canada declares Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group

OTTAWA - Ottawa on June 19 listed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist entity while calling on Canadians in the Islamic country to leave.

“Our government has made the decision to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told a news conference.

Flanked by Canada’s foreign and justice ministers, he accused the Iranian regime of “support for terrorism” and “having consistently displayed disregard for human rights both inside and outside of Iran, as well as a willingness to destabilise the international rules-based order”.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, noting that Ottawa broke off diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2012, urged Canadians against travelling to Iran.

“For those who are in Iran right now, it’s time to come back home,” she said.

The terrorism listing bars members of the Guards from entering Canada and Canadians from having any dealings with individual members or the group. Any assets the Guards or its members hold in Canada may also be seized.

Iran condemned Canada’s listing of the Guards as a terrorist organisation as “an unwise and unconventional politically motivated step”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency on June 20.

“Canada’s action will not have any effect on the Revolutionary Guards’ legitimate and deterrent power,” Mr Kanaani said, adding that Tehran reserves the right to respond accordingly to the listing.

Iranian expats and families of the victims of Flight PS752 – which was

downed by Iran shortly after take-off

from Tehran in January 2020, killing all 176 passengers and crew, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents – have long pressed Ottawa to designate the militia as a terrorist entity.

MPs in May unanimously voted to do so.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration had, until now, expressed reluctance, explaining that a terror listing could be too broad and inadvertently impact Iranians in Canada opposed to the regime.

Mr Kourosh Doustshenas, speaking on behalf of the families of Flight PS752 victims, welcomed the Guards’ terrorism listing, calling it “a huge step forward in the search for justice for everyone who has been a victim of this organisation”.

Canada’s blacklist includes nearly 80 entities such as Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Taliban, ISIS and the Proud Boys, a North American neo-fascist militant group.

Ottawa has previously listed the Quds Force, a branch of the Guards, as a terrorist entity, and in 2022 permanently denied entry to more than 10,000 Iranian officials, including members of the Guards.

The United States listed the Guards as

a foreign terrorist organisation

in April 2019.

Earlier in June, the European Union also

sanctioned the Guards for allegedly supplying drones

to Russia and its allies in the Middle East.

The decision to add the Guards to Canada’s terror list comes amid tensions between Ottawa and Tehran. Canada and other nations have sued Iran at the International Court of Justice over the downing of Flight PS752.

Tehran has claimed a missile strike on the aircraft was carried out by mistake.

Ahead of the press conference, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland described the Iranian regime as “brutal, repressive, theocratic and misogynist”. AFP, REUTERS