Toronto, Canada, June 19 (EFE). – The Canadian government revealed Wednesday its decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.
Announcing the decision on Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc called it a «significant tool in fighting global terrorism.”
Once added to Canada’s blacklist of terrorist organizations, the country’s police can charge anyone who provides financial or material support to the Revolutionary Guard, and banks can freeze their assets.
The move will mean that thousands of senior Iranian government officials, including top IRGC officials, will be barred from entering Canada.
The IRGC is a military, political, and economic force in Iran with close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
At the same press conference, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly called on all Canadians in Iran to leave the country as soon as possible at the risk of reprisals.
In May, Canada’s lower house, the Commons, unanimously passed a motion designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Canada had previously declined to extend the terrorism designation to the Revolutionary Guard, despite pressure from some members of the Iranian diaspora-including the families of the victims of the downing of PS 752 in Tehran in January 2020.
All 175 passengers on board the plane were killed, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
Tehran had claimed that the missile attack on the plane was a mistake.
Trudeau had previously said in 2022 that he was concerned that a terrorism designation would unfairly target Iranians in Canada who had opposed the regime and fled.
Asked by reporters why now, LeBlanc said the decision to designate a group as a terrorist entity is a «deliberative process» made on the advice of security services and with foreign policy considerations in mind.
The Revolutionary Guard is a branch of Iran’s armed forces created after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Several countries have designated it or some of its units as terrorist organizations.
The United States designated the Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guard, as a terrorist group in 2007, and in 2019, under the Donald Trump administration (2017-2021), the Guard was also blacklisted.
Canada has sanctioned several members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the past, and Justin Trudeau said as early as January this year that his government was considering ways to add the Guard to its list of terrorist organizations.
jcr-er/mcd/ics
