While shoring up support for Iranian protesters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, prominent Iranian activist Masih Alinejad told True North’s Andrew Lawton that inaction from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the Islamist regime is getting protesters killed.
In an exclusive interview, Alinejad mentioned the recent vote by the European Parliament to call on member states to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
“I strongly believe the time has come for the whole world to put the (IRGC) on the terrorist list, which the United States of America did three years ago. The EU are going to designate the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization,” said Alinejad.
“I hope the Justin Trudeau government will join them because three years ago, I gave a testimony in the Canadian Parliament. I called on Justin Trudeau to designate them as a terrorist organization. They didn’t and what happened? More people got killed.”
Critics have accused the Liberals of dragging their feet on listing the group as a designated terrorist entity under the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act despite prior commitments.
In 2018, Trudeau and his fellow Liberal MPs voted in support of an opposition motion by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis to further condemn Iran and add the IRGC to the list alongside the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
“Sadly, this turned out to be another instance of Liberals trying to look like they care without actually taking concrete action. The Canadian government has, however, provided no clear indication of why they don’t want to list the IRGC. If Liberals continue to break their word on this, then they should at least explain why,” Genius told True North earlier this week.
Since then, Trudeau has come short of his commitment, instead banning a number of IRGC officials from Canada via an immigration blacklist. Advocates like the President of the Council of Iranian-Canadians Avideh Motmâenfar have called the move “insignificant.”
“I refuse to attribute the failure of the Federal Government to list the IRGC as a terrorist entity to a lack of proper knowledge about the terrorist nature of that organization. Indeed, since the commencement of the ongoing uprisings in Iran, we have seen time and time again Trudeau uttering pretty accurate descriptions of the Islamic Republic and, particularly, the IRGC,” said Motmâenfar.
“Even, to save face, the government has announced some new, however insignificant, sanctions against a number of the IRGC commanders, such as travel bans under the Immigration Act. But why is it that Trudeau has resisted for so long and continues to resist listing the IRGC as a terrorist entity?”
