Invisible In Plain View: Iran in Canada

"Our government was and is relentless in its pursuit of justice for the families of the [Flight 752] victims."

"We will stop at nothing to ensure that this regime is held to account and that we will support the families [of the Iranian-Canadians who died in the shelling of the flight out of Tehran, bound for Canada], until justice is served."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"They know every detail of my life in Canada. They said, 'even in Canada, your sister is not safe'. They told her they knew where Shafipour worked -- she has since changed jobs -- and exactly where she lived."

"They know even the view from my apartment window."

"If you can, imagine a member of the IRGC, which is killing people in the streets of Iran in these days, can freely come to Canada and invest money in real estate and be your neighbour."

"This is about the safety and security of Canadians."

Maryan Shafipour, Iranian-Canadian

"Everyone is afraid for their relatives back home."

"Intelligence officials have visited my family in Tehran and they know a lot about my activities here."

"It's obvious that they are monitoring all of us."

Kaveh Shahrooz, Iranian Canadian human rights lawyer

People demonstrate against the Iranian regime during a protest at Mel Lastman Square in Toronto on Sept. 24, 2022. Photo by GEOFF ROBINS / AFP via Getty Images

Canada is a strange place. Its population is comprised of a society built on immigration. And a significant part of that immigrant quotient is that of refugees, arriving in Canada from all over the world seeking haven from exploitation, victimization, discrimination, civil and external conflicts. Following World War II, refugees from war-torn Europe, many of whom had survived Nazi death-camps found, while walking the streets of their new home and haven in Toronto, that there were Nazi-era guards they recognized on the street, who had also made their way to Canada.

While Canada became a haven for displaced. dispirited people who had survived the horrors of slave-labour and death camps, it  had also become a haven for incoming Nazi war criminals. Many of whom were identified and brought to the attention of the Canadian government. Little action was taken against their presence; Canada distinguished itself by its gross ineptitude in upholding its own values of closing its borders to war criminals, and nor did it undertake any successful suits against their presence.

History has a way of repeating itself. The Parliament of Canada condemned China for its treatment of Uyghurs and its action in Hong Kong, yet it was recently revealed that government authorities have done nothing to prevent or to defend ethnic Chinese Canadians from harassment and threats by the Communist Party of China against Chinese-Canadian citizens. To the extent that actual police stations manned by Chinese police officers now set up in Canada monitor the actions of Chinese-Canadians.

Just as once Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors realized that their former Nazi guards were living in Canada alongside their victims, Iranians self-exiled from their country of birth, fleeing the despotic Islamic Republic of Iran and its Republican Guard Corps' outreach, now see prominent Iranian leaders walking the streets of Toronto, free to come and go at will, under this current government. The tormentors of Iranians seen working out in upscale club gyms, dining in expensive restaurants, buying properties in exclusive areas.

Iranians may be assembling in towns and cities all over Iran, with the IRGC violently reacting to 'bring order' back to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities since the murder in police custody of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini -- arrested by the 'morality police' on charges of immodest dress, but in Canada harassment of citizens is ongoing. When Maryan Shafipour was the same age as Mahsa Amini she too had been arrested for the crime of championing reforms.

Sentenced to 7 years in prison, an international campaign by human rights groups saw her released in 2015, when she moved to Canada. She joined forces with exiled former Iranian judge, Shirin Ehadi, who founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. "Canada, for a start, could definitely take steps to target individuals [for gross human rights violations] especially because there are Iranians residing in Canada who have appropriated funds from Iranian coffers, and they have put that money in Canadian banks. You should take or confiscate that illicit money that they have put into your banks", said Mr. Ehadi.

Maryam Shafipour appeared before a House of Commons Committee in 2018 to testify about human rights concerns in her native country. At that point her family began experiencing particular difficulties, living in Iran. Interrogated by Iran's security and intelligence agency, her sister was told she should persuade Shafipour to return to Iran, or to a neighbouring country for a visit. Once there, she would be arrested and once again imprisoned for seditious acts against the Islamic Republic of Iran. For Iranians living in Canada their refuge has turned into a nightmare.

Members of the IRGC, the very Islamist Iranian military group that shot down the January 2020 Flight 782 killing all 176 aboard, including 55 Canadian citizens of Iranian extraction, and 30 permanent residents, along with Iranian students heading to Canada to study at Canadian universities, can now stroll about Canadian cities under cover but blatantly visible and one wonders how they were able to obtain visitors' or resident permits from Canada's redoubtable immigration service...?

Members of the Iranian community gathered in Toronto Monday evening to protest against the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died Friday after being detained by Iran's morality police. (Darek Zdzienicki/CBC)

Russia: Unintended Consequences to Ukraine 'Special Operation'

"President [Vladimir] Putin's war in Ukraine is a war on freedom, on democracy and on the rights of Ukrainians, and all people, to determine their own future."

"As Canadians, these are values we hold dear. Athletes who decide to play and associate with Russia and Belarus should explain their decisions to the public." 

"Our government has been very clear. Canadians should avoid all travel to Russia and Belarus. If they are in Russia or in Belarus, they should leave now."

"Our ability to provide consular services may become extremely limited."

Adrien Blanchard, press secretary, Canadian Foreign Affairs

Russian policemen prepare to detain participants of an unauthorized protest against the partial mobilization due to the conflict in Ukraine, in central St. Petersburg, Russia, 21 September 2022. Russian President President Putin has signed a decree on partial mobilization in the Russian Federation, with mobilization activities starting on 21 September. Russian citizens who are in the reserve will be called up for military service. [EPA-EFE/ANATOLY MALTSEV]

 

Evidently, the traditional 'break a leg' in show business resonates with professional Canadian hockey players. Despite the turmoil in Russia, with Russian citizens leaving by droves to enter other Eastern European states in haste to avoid the partial call-up of Russian military reservists, and the urgency with which the Canadian government has instructed its citizens to leave Russia lest they become pawns in Russia's conflict with Ukraine, it seems none of the 48 Canadian hockey players currently with the Kontinental Hockey League club roster has complied.

 

They obviously don't feel in any danger of a personal nature while playing for Russian/Belarus teams and intend to remain where they are; after all, their reasoning might be that sports and politics are not compatible. There are forty-four Canadians playing with clubs in Russia and Belarus, and another four with Kazakhstan hockey clubs.  

Advisories urging Canadians to return home from Russia were posted along with advisories not to travel to or within Belarus or Russia in March and February. Nine of the Canadian players in the KHL received personal messages from the Canadian Press enquiring  whether they had received any assurances from the leagues and the teams ensuring their personal safety. None have responded. While Canadians feel comfortable remaining in Russia, several hundred thousand Russian citizens have felt compelled to flee.

Their very departure concerns neighbouring countries for fear of a wider state of instability in the region. Statistics out of Georgia, Kazakhstan and the European Union indicate the scale of the Russian departures with a total considered a gross underestimate -- while Russian citizens flood to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, none of which have publicly disclosed arrival figures. 

Millions of Russians were shocked when their president issued mobilization orders a week ago in a country that had up to then been shielded from the upheaval taking place in Ukraine as a result of the Russian invasion. Suddenly, in essence, the 'special military operation' has been transformed to a conflict zone. Can Russians really have been taken by surprise? Vladimir Putin was well aware that a general call-up would be wholly unpopular in his country.

The circumstances of the Ukrainian military successful counteroffensive has caught the Kremlin off guard. The call-up, reluctant as it was, and clumsily limited for the present, risked arousing the anger of the Russian populace, realizing Putin's fears by large protests breaking out all over Russian towns and cities. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's assurance that the call-up would affect a mere 300,00 of the 25 million reservists doesn't appear to be quelled the reaction.

Russian police detain a protester during a rally against the mobilization of reservists ordered by President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 24.

Cornered and Snarling Nuclear

"I believe that NATO would not directly interfere in the conflict even in this scenario [should Moscow strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons]."

"The demagogues across the ocean and in Europe are not going to die in a nuclear apocalypse [by striking Russia and risking a nuclear war]."

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian President/Prime Minister, currently deputy chairman, Russian Security Council

Russian nuclear weapon Topol-M near the Kremlin    Getty Images

 

Dmitry Medvedev is Vladimir Putin's man. Infamously when Mr. Putin had exhausted his then-constitutional two-terms in office, Medvedev obligingly played musical chairs with Mr. Putin, taking on the presidency while Putin was demoted to the Prime Ministership (manipulating the presidency through Medvedev), creating a temporary break from the presidency for Putin, enabling the exchange, once the term had expired to reverse, with Putin returning to the presidency. At which time he adroitly managed to alter the constitution effectively granting him the presidency in perpetuity.

Mr. Medvedev remains devoted to Mr. Putin's Russia, parroting the very same lines that his president gravely intones in expressing the 'no-choice' situation of Ukraine's very existence posing an existential threat to the Russian Federation through the Machiavellian evil of Ukraine's neo-Nazi government. A government so steeped in fascism that it has the temerity to fight back against the Kremlin's 'special military invasion' that isn't a war unless that kind of nomenclature is worth a 15-year jail term.

Through Mr. Medvedev, obediently responding to his guide and mentor's instructions, the world is on notice once again that, sufficiently shoved against a wall, Russia viz-a-viz a presidential decree is prepar3ed to go nuclear in and on Ukraine. In effect, countering both the Ukrainian military's hugely successful counteroffensive in the east and northeast of Ukraine, and the efforts of the West, NATO nations and the United States to shore up Ukraine's resolve in the supply of technologically advanced weaponry to match and outmatch Russia's.

Vladimir Putin is spittin' mad and he isn't going to take it any more. An ungrateful world condemns his war crimes in Ukraine, promising that in the end there will be a payment in kind for such evil, while in very fact, Russia is sacrificing itself for the greater good of humanity in taming a fascist serpent it has identified as Ukraine. So far, Russia's pay-back of cutting gas supplies to Europe has failed to temper the EU's sanctions.

But then, Russia has its fall-back position of nuclear strikes, but not necessarily nuclear strikes. Unless they do indeed become necessary and that decision will be left to Putin's discretion. He is wavering, just as his troops are receding under the dominating blowback of the Ukrainian military. Which, without the West-supplied weapons would be an entirely spent force. Some take the none-too-veiled threats that have erupted on occasion of its readiness to use its nuclear arsenal seriously, while other analysts fail to.

Their interpretation is that this is a warning device meant to deter Ukraine and the West from their adamant defence of a sovereign nation overrun by a savage occupation known to have committed and to continue to commit war crimes. The use of tactical nuclear weapons in defence of Russia's determination to defend the dignity of its irredentist strategy intended to pave the way for a resumption of Russia's former status in conquest of its Soviet satellites, a mere ploy to ensure the West and Ukraine pull back sensibly.

The strategy behind the recently-concluded vote in the four regions of Ukraine that Russia means to annex, is to demonstrate to the world that the population of those contested regions, the Industrial heartland of Ukraine, is eager to join Russia and leave Ukraine. So that once the formal declaration of sovereignty is made, Moscow will be entirely justified in using nuclear strikes in response to Ukraine's military continuing to strike at territory that Moscow considers its own.

Iran: A Nation Rent Asunder

Women burn headscarves during a protest over Amini's death in the city of Qamishli, Syria, on Monday. (Orhan Qereman/Reuters)

"The spark that lit the recent Iranian protests -- which increasingly displays all the hallmarks of a revolution -- was the murder of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran's 'morality police'."

"They had detained her because her hijab did not meet the Iranian regime's strict standards."

"The protests that have gripped the country after Amini's death are the stuff of nightmares for the geriatric clerics and military thugs that have run Iran since 1979."

"Unlike in previous protests where the people chanted for economic relief or fair elections, the message from the streets has been clear: "Death to the dictator".

"There is perhaps no better symbol of the system's cruelty than its current president, Ebrahim Raisi, a man who by all accounts was directly involved in sending approximately 5,000 political prisoners to the gallows in a massacre n 1988."

Kaveh Shahrooz, lawyer, human rights activist, senior fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute

A demonstrator holds a photo of Mahsa Amini during a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday. Amini died after being arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly violating its strictly enforced dress code. (Philippos Christou/The Associated Press)

 

Several days ago state-organized demonstrations in several cities in Iran countered anti-government unrest resulting from the death of the young Kurdish-Iranian woman who was murdered in police custody. Marchers in these demonstrations called for the execution of anti-government protesters. The Iranian military has warned the Iranian public it planned to confront "the enemies" causing the unrest. The pro-government demonstrators condemned anti-government groups as "Israel's soldiers", shouting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel".

Mahsa Amini's death last week has spurred Iranians to stage mass protests country-wide, outraged that morality police arrested her for wearing "unsuitable attire". The Iranian military messaged that "These desperate actions [demonstrations] are part of the evil strategy of the enemy to weaken the Islamic regime". And it was the intention of the military to "confront the enemies' various plots in order to ensure security and peace for the people who are being unjustly assaulted".

 

A demonstrator cuts his hair during a protest in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Sunday. (Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters)

 

According to Iran's Intelligence Minister, "Seditionists' dream of defeating religious values and the great achievements of the revolution will never be realized". In Amini's home province of Kurdistan anti-government protests were particularly resonant. In towns in the northwest of Iran where many of Iran's ten million Kurds live, a general strike in protest was held. The Islamic Republic is in the grip of crises, both internal and external. Some 46 cities in Iran along with towns and villages have seen protests, unnerving authorities.

 

People participate in a protest in New York City on Tuesday. Amini's death in police custody has sparked demonstrations in Iran and worldwide. (Stephanie Keith/Reuters)

 

Dozens of protesters and police have been killed since September 17 when the protests began, with over 1,200 demonstrators arrested. Authorities are restricting internet access, detaining journalists and placing tight controls on all levers of government power. Protesters' capacity to organize and share videos with the outside world has been limited by Instagram, LinkedIn and WhatsApp restrictions; the last Western social media apps in the country. Short video clips have emerged, however, some of security forces firing at protesters and women defiantly snipping their hair off, burning hijabs.

The feared basij motorcycle-riding volunteer forces allied with Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard have attacked demonstrators. Demonstrators have also set fires, flipped over police cars, fighting back against riot police. Independent observers like human rights activists face threats, intimidation and arrest. The public has received government text messages warning of criminal charges for joining demonstrations.

Western sanctions have wiped out savings of a generation in the country, with the economy cratered. Iran's currency value has plummeted from 32,000 rials for a dollar in 2015, to 315,000 rials for a dollar in 2022. Iranian youth attempt to go abroad at whatever cost, leaving the struggle to make ends meet behind them. The 2021 presidential election where Ebrahim Raisi, a protege of Ayatollah Khamenei, saw the lowest electorate vote in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Both in the military and economic sphere, the Revolutionary Guard, answerable only to the Grand Ayatollah, has become ever more powerful during recent tensions with the West. According to the U.S. Treasury, the Guard has smuggled "hundreds of millions of dollars" of sanctioned oil into the international market. Both the Guard and the senior theocracy hold financial and political incentives to protect the status quo, even in the face of the current and growing mass protests by the Iranian public.

Iranian pro-government protesters wave their national flag during a rally in Tehran on Sunday against the recent anti-government protests in the country. (AFP/Getty Images)

Rewarding Russian Call-Up Protesters With Call-Up Summons

"[This winter] will be very difficult."

"They will shoot missiles, and they will target our electric grid."

"This is a challenge, but we are not afraid of that."

"[With the partial call-up of reserves] They admitted that their army is not able to fight with Ukraine anymore."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"It may be the moment to rethink the issue of visas to Russians …"

"Helping the men who want to flee from being mobilized would be a humanitarian and militarily good decision."

Gérard Araud, veteran French diplomat

 

"Many Russians who are now being called up do not want to take part in this war either. This is a good sign."

“A way must be left open for Russians to come to Europe and also to Germany."

German government spokesman

 

"[300,000 is] an immense number of people to then try to get in any sense of semblance to be able to fight in Ukraine."

"The authorities will face major challenges even in mustering this number of personnel."

"We think that they will be very challenged in training, let alone equipping such a large force quickly." "[Recruits will likely be issued] old stuff and unreliable equipment."

Unnamed European official

President Vladimir Putin's announcement of Russia's first military draft since the Second World War sparked waves of protests across the country, resulting in over 700 arrests.

In Germany, some officials express a wish to give aid to Russian men fleeing military service, calling for a Europe-wide solution. This desire to be of help to Russian citizens desperately attempting to avoid the partial reservist call-up issued by the Kremlin in the face of massive territorial losses the Ukrainian military counteroffensive has reclaimed for Ukraine, has found sympathy in France as well. But it is the eastern European countries, former satellites of the Soviet Union, those on Russia's near-abroad that are unwilling to open their borders to fleeing Russians.

 

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is bracing for additional strikes on Ukraine's electrical infrastructure in a Kremlin strategy to increae pressure on Ukraine and its backers in the West as colder weather enters leading to winter, Mr. Zelensky spoke disparagingly of the Russian mobilization, its first such event since the Second World War, as a symbol of weakness, not strength, signalling the Russian "army is not able to fight".

 

In the interim, the  United States has provided Ukraine with NASAMS air defence systems. Systems that use surface-to-air missiles to track and shoot down incoming missiles or aircraft. All of these powerful, more technologically advanced war machines continue to give Ukraine an upper hand in its offensive against a Russian military which has stumbled in its mission from 24 February forward in a gross upset of Moscow's arrogant plan to swiftly take Kyiv and unseat Ukraine's government for one of its own.

The European Union has closed itself off to Russian ingress. Direct flights were stopped, land borders increasingly closed to Russian travel, including the exodus of Russian men trying to evade military service. That very escaping influx has created dissension among European officials in the issue whether Russians abandoning their country's call-up for military service in Ukraine looking for safe haven in Europe can expect to be welcomed.

Protests have broken out all over Russia, with burgeoning antiwar demonstrations. Dagestan in the North Caucasus saw police firing warning shots to disperse protesters in the poverty-stricken region where a highway was blocked in protest of Russian President Vladimir Putin's military call-up. Women chanting "No to war!", in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, made it abundantly clear they have no intention of standing by while their men are marched off to war as a reflection of Vladimir Putin's vanity project.

The Siberian city of Yakutsk saw women protesting as well, marching in a circle around police and for their efforts many were dragged off by police or forced into police vans, according to Russian media videos. Recent days has seen a minimum of several thousand people arrested for demonstrations taking place around Russia. For their sacrifices in defying the government many of the men hauled off from the protests were immediately given call-up summons.

 

A protester is detained by police during an unsanctioned rally in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday. Despite Russia's harsh laws against criticizing the military and the war in Ukraine, protests erupted across the country after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists. (Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images)

 

 

Claiming Russian Title to Ukraine's East

"Encroachment on to Russian territory is a crime which allows you to use all the forces of self-defence."

“This is why these referendums are so feared in Kyiv and the west."

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president, deputy chair, security council

 

"There is no referendum. There is a propaganda exercise which is being called a referendum."

"It means nothing. It will be a few staged things where there will be Russian television cameras."

Mykhailo Podolyak, senior aide, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy

"From the very start of the operation … we said that the peoples of the respective territories should decide their fate, and the whole current situation confirms that they want to be masters of their fate,"

Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov

A volunteer distributes the Republic campaign newspaper with the slogan '27.09 – Yes' during a campaign rally for a referendum to join the Russian Federation in downtown Luhansk, Ukraine. Photograph: EPA

 

The sudden launch of a 'referendum' whose purpose is to demonstrate to the world that Ukrainian citizens living in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions of the Donbas would produce an overwhelming vote in favour of joining Russia, is meant to give legitimacy to Vladimir Putin's illegal occupation and invasion of Ukraine. All the more desperately sought as validation of Russia's claims of historical regional ownership in consideration of recent setbacks where the Ukrainian military has launched its counteroffensive with gratifyingly obvious success for Ukraine's reclamation of its territories and towns.

Moscow, however is leaving nothing to chance. It is clear that the population of the Donbas is being coerced to 'vote' in Russia's favour, leaving an oppressed population little choice but to support Russia's claim that the population agrees it is in favour of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia. Ukrainian officials speak of people being banned from leaving some of the occupied areas while the four-day vote is being conducted.

And as additional measures to make certain that people do as they're told under duress, armed groups go directly to homes forcing people to cast their ballots. Elsewhere, employees face threats of losing their employment should they fail to participate. "Today, the best thing for the people of Kherson would be not to open their doors", advised displaced first deputy council chairman of Kherson region, Yuriy Sobolevsky..

With Ukraine's recapture of large swaths of the northeast in their counteroffensive, the voting manoeuvre was organized in great haste. The same Ukraine counteroffensive highlighting a weak Russian military response, impelled Vladimir Putin to act on a matter he has been famously loathe to call upon, knowing the furious public reaction that would result, by calling up a partial military draft to swell the military by 300,000 troops to deploy to Ukraine.

Moscow envisions succeeding in new attacks to retake the initiative in the grinding conflict. By formally incorporating vulnerable, occupied areas of Ukraine, as essentially Russian, Vladimir Putin would then regard attacks on those areas by Ukraine as representing attacks on Russia itself, to justify a response possibly as frighteningly severe as a nuclear attack. Nothing would merit such a starkly globally extreme attack in the Russian attack against Ukraine, but the reverse obviously would.

References to Russia's nuclear arsenal have gone well beyond idle talk; they are now being invoked as a possible option should Russia find itself in extremis. There is little that could be viewed as more terrorizing than unleashing a nuclear bomb in the context of a war Russia has imposed on a neighbour, with its far-reaching menace and ramifications throughout Europe. Much less a necessary response that would draw the entire region and beyond into a wider conflict.

In the east and northeast, voting in the provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia represent a desperate attempt by the Kremlin to legitimize the illegality of the occupation of a third of Ukraine, in what is essentially the country's industrial heartland. Serhiy Gaidai, Luhansk's Ukrainian governor, spoke of the population of the town of Starobilsk banned from leaving, with people forced from their homes to vote. The situation, he said, was "elections without elections", where people were forced to complete "pieces of paper" lacking privacy, in kitchens and yards.

"The mood of the Russians is panicky because they were not ready to carry out so quickly this so-called referendum, there is no support, there's not enough people", explained Sobolevsky from Kherson. The votes have been condemned by leaders of the West and the United Nations, viewing the issue as an illegitimate precursor to illegal annexation, simply put, with no independent observers where a large percentage of the pre-war population having fled. 

"It's all nonsense, bluff and political manipulation to frighten us and the Western countries with their nuclear stuff", remarked 64-year-old Oleksandr Yaroshenko, resident of Kyiv. Previously, a referendum was staged as a pretext for annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. Russia's little set-piece strategies for returning its neighbours to their pre-Soviet-disintegration servitude.

Vladimir Vysotsky, the head of the Central Election Commission of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, inspects a polling station before a referendum in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: AP

Russian Oligarchs' Penchant for Accidents, Suicide

"When people die suddenly in Russia, you usually assume it's suspicious until you rule it out."

"It becomes a lot more suspicious when all those people die in strange ways and all are connected in some way to the oil and gas business."

"Putin is behind all of them, because he is the ultimate beneficiary. He is like the mafia boss."

Bill Browder, former foreign investor in Russia 

"It could be security forces muscling into the energy sector. [But] these are guesses."

"We are just making guesses about a situation that is by definition opaque."

"Strange things happen. History is not required to make sense."

Seva Gunitsky, political science professor, University of Toronto

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukoil Vice-President Ravil Maganov in 2019. Maganov was recently reported to have died after falling from a hospital window. Photo by Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty ImagesFile

 

There is nothing particularly new about political assassinations in Russia. They happen with regularity; critics of the regime, its president, suffer the consequences. Which doesn't stop the outrage of principled people from breaking out of their cocoon of self-preservation from time to time, succumbing to their outrage in however a brief period of relieving themselves of the massive irritation they feel over the Kremlin's political machinations in league with their president's ambitions.

 

From the time of the February invasion of Ukraine bizarre deaths of prominent, wealthy, sometimes influential businessmen have occurred. Mysterious deaths that on occasion also lethally victimize members of their families. Mysterious mostly because the reason for these deaths remains unknown. And those responsible are not about to enlighten the puzzled onlookers who may themselves be the next victims.

 

From mere days leading up to the invasion of Ukraine to the present time, a line of up to eleven oligarchs and business executives, most with links to Russia's largest corporations, and mostly involved with energy, have been dispatched in accidents, suicides, murder-suicides and suddenly-fatal health issues. One prominent Russian fell overboard from a speeding boat in the Sea of Japan, just this past Saturday.

 

And just before that occurred, the vice-president of Lukoil energy giant lost his balance and fell from a window of a hospital where he was being treated for an undisclosed malady. The series of strange fatalities has aroused visions of a widespread menace despite Russia being a country where assassinations are not uncommon. 

 

Bill Browder considers most of those deaths were simply murder scenes, orchestrated by business rivals for greater assets from figures in the energy industry, awash with wealth despite Western sanctions. He believes these deaths were planned by the FSB the main security-intelligence service of the country, and the trail points directly to Vladimir Putin extracting his cut of resulting proceeds.

Not to be overlooked is that some of the dead had been incautious enough to speak their opposition of the war. "Let's not forget that Putin does mix money and politics and I think he goes after his enemies in both cases with equal amounts of cruelty and potentially violence", said Marcus Kolga, a fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute think-tank.

President Putin lost no time making any measure of opposition to his invasion of Ukraine a proposition of risk for anyone criticizing the "special military operation" that has destroyed towns and villages, laid waste to inner cities, killed thousands of Russian and Ukrainian servicemen and many more thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians.

Something as offensive as calling the 'special military operation' a war, referring to the brutality involved, or any other type of comment, can net the offender up to 15 years in prison. It's possible that as an alternative of the irreversible state of death, some of those marked out for death would far have preferred the option of 15 years imprisonment, but they had no choice in the matter.

Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow where Lukoil executive Ravil Maganov is said to have died from a fall out of a sixth floor window, September 1, 2022. Photo by Evgenii Bugubaev/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Canada's Puzzling Permissiveness in Allowing Visas for Iranian Regime Representatives

"Why has Canada become a safe haven for these people ... if the families of the victims [of the 2020 downing of flight PS752 shot down over Tehran by the IRGC] can't come to Canada to gather their daughter's or son's belongings?"

"Why are the doors wide open [to members of the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime members?]"

Hamed Esmaellion, Toronto dentist

"Canada does not limit the number of temporary resident visa applications that are accepted from any country."

"Temporary resident visa applications are considered on a case-by-case basis on the specific facts presented by the applicant."

Aidan Strickland, spokeswoman, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser 

"Democratic countries like Canada need to wake up to the fact they are being used by the world's most brutal regime as a safe haven."

"While they enforce these medieval, draconian laws on the people, their own children are free to live without the hijab, living Western lifestyles."

Mariam Memarsadeghi fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute

Hamid Rezazadeh’s mother, Ensieh Khazali, pictured, is one of Iran’s 12 vice presidents, responsible for women and family affairs. Photo by Mehr News Agency /Wikimedia

Canada took steps in 2012 to disinvite the Iranian Embassy and its staff from Canadian soil. No longer would the Islamist Theocracy interfere in Canadian affairs, and no longer would Canada give diplomatic status and recognition to Iranian members of the terrorist-supporting regime. But that all took place under a Conservative-led government, by then-Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. When the current PM, Justin Trudeau, brought the Liberals back to power, his intention was to restore relations with Iran.

 

Events on the world stage intervened to make that diplomatically unfeasible; not the least of which was that Iran was fully recognized as a terrorist state that grooms and arms terrorist groups in other Middle East countries. When the IRGC shot down a Ukraine Airliner full of Canadians, the likelihood of re-establishing relations grew impossible. Yet the son of one of the regime's 12 vice-presidents is present in Canada, on a visa enabling him to work in the country.

Iranian journalist Abdullah Abdi who works out of Switzerland revealed the situation and with it the question that asks why would Canada permit someone closely aligned with a regime widely known for gross human rights abuses and which had caused the deaths of dozens of Canadian air passengers, be given a visa to visit and live in the country?

It is a question puzzling and infuriating to Iranian Canadians who oppose the Iranian Republic under the Ayatollahs, who now argue that Hamid Rezazadeh has no business in Canada, all the more so since visas have been denied to other Iranians not linked to the government in Iran. Tehran's former chief of police who is accused of many human rights abuses was seen earlier this year in the Toronto area. Late founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini's great-granddaughter was given a study visa to attend an Ontario university.

Ensieh Khazali, one of Iran's vice-presidents, recently stated that her son was developing Iran's technical knowledge-base and plans to be returning to Iran shortly. Relations between Iran and Canada are tense, yet Iranians with deep links to the theocracy live and study and work in Canada. While relatives of those Iranian Canadians who died in the aerial strikes of the Ukrainian passenger liner have been refused visas to enter Canada to attend memorial services for their relatives.

A Washington, DC.-based scholar, Alireza Nader who is also a critic of the Iranian regime conducted a research project for the Foundation for Defence of Democracies recently, on Iranian interference in Canada. He discovered that cases made public are merely "the tip of the iceberg", where many other former officials and even intelligence agents have been permitted to settle in Canada. "It just amazes me that the Trudeau government would allow this kind of infiltration into Canadian society", stated Nader.

Easier Said Than Done, Putin!

"A total blackout in the Kharkiv, Donetsk regions, a partial one in the Zaportzhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions."

"Russian Forces terrorists remain terrorist and attack critical infrastructure."

"No military facilities, the goal is to deprive people of light and heat, #RussiaIsATerroristState."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"Our forces entered Kuplansk."

"The liberation of Kuplansk and Iryum districts of Kharkiv region are ongoing."

Ukrainian Military

"People are crying, people are joyful, of course. How could they not be joyful!"

Retired English teacher Zoya, 76, village of Zolochiv

"Not to say a word about the realities of what is happening around Kharkiv, means to betray those who fought there and are still fighting."

Pro-Russia blogger Military Informant

Ukrainian soldiers hold a flag on a rooftop in Kupyansk on September 10. Kupyansk is a transportation hub in eastern Ukraine and strategically important for supplying Russian troops in the Donbas region

Well, isn't that amazing? It will be attached to the annals in support of the cautionary "Don't count your chickens until they're hatched" scenarios.  Yet says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, "The special military operation continues. And it will continue until the goals that were originally set are achieved." Or, perhaps, until every last Russian serviceman is either dead or imprisoned?

"It seems now confirmed there is a general Russian withdrawal from Kharkiv Oblast" stated British defence analyst James Rushton from his location in Ukraine. Or did the Russian military perhaps leave all their military equipment and ammunition behind deliberately, to await their expeditious return after a brief cautionary retreat? It's unlikely the Ukrainian military will obligingly hand it all back, even if asked politely.

The reality is that Ukraine's counteroffensive is a roaring success, leaving Russian troops little option but to abandon their entire northern occupation of Kharkiv. Analysts seem to relish describing the retreat as a shock rout and even a potential turning point in Russia's war against Ukraine. In Kharkiv, Ukrainian soldiers describe seeing Russian commanders "literally running away", Russian soldiers hurriedly changing into civilian clothing.

Thus far and they're obviously on a rollback, Ukrainian forces recaptured over 20 villages and towns, some north of Kharkiv on the very border with Russia, describing a near-total collapse of the Russian front in the northeastern region of Ukraine.

 

Remnants of a destroyed tank are seen in Balakliya, Ukraine, on Saturday. Russia's Defence Ministry announced Saturday that it's pulling back troops from two areas in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region — Balakliya being one of them — where a Ukrainian counteroffensive has made significant advances in the past week. (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images)

 

It has been seen and proven that all of Russia's forces have fled the Kharkiv region. Even pro-Russia military bloggers now admit the Russian front in the area has collapsed and according to Ukraine's defence ministry, around 1,158 square kilometres have been returned to Ukraine. Power outages were reported in several Ukrainian cities, after reports of Russian missile attacks. "Revenge strikes" they're called following the collapse of the Russian army around Kharkiv.

At least two power stations in Kremenchuk and Kharkiv struck by precision rockets. Russian attacks on "critical infrastructure" disrupted electricity and water supplies, according to the governor of the eastern Kharkiv region. Moscow's forces had "hit energy infrastructure" in retaliation for "defeat on the battlefield", was how the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region put it.

The Kremlin earlier in the war exulted over the capture of Kuplansk and Iryum, vital hubs to resupply Russian forces in Donbas. They are now no longer in Russian hands. Five soldiers feature in a video from Izyum standing on the roof of a destroyed government building, firing rounds skyward, waving the Ukrainian flag, shouting "Glory to Ukraine!"

And just incidentally, Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister announced Russia would be prepared to sit down for peace talks. Really? Peace talks! Weren't they off the table? Isn't that what Moscow had declared? The Russian defence ministry in a video briefing by Lt.Gen.Igor Konashenkov considers a mere sliver of land east of the Oskil River secure in Russian control. 

Confirmation from Vitaly Ganchev, Russia-installed head of Moscow's occupation administration acknowledged that what remained in the Kharkiv region Ukrainian forces broke through to the frontier. No word from President Vladimir Putin and his senior officials, however in the face of the worst defeat since the war's early weeks, to befall Russian forces. And while the complete scale of the Russian defeat around Kharkiv is yet to fully emerge, videos and photos show great heaps of abandoned tanks and other equipment.

Ukrainian military vehicles move on the road in the freed territory in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on Sept. 12, 2022. | Kostiantyn Liberov/AP Photo

"The Ukrainian counteoffensive in Kharkiv Oblast is routing Russian forces and collapsing Russia's northern Donbas axis."

"Russian forces are not conducting a controlled withdrawal."

Institute for the Study of War assessment

Ukrainian Counteroffensive Successes

"To achieve the goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas, a decision was made to regroup Russian troops stationed in the Balakliya and Izyum regions, to bolster efforts along the Donetsk front."

Russia's Defense Ministry statement

 

"I have traveled to Kyiv to show that they can continue to rely on us. That we will continue to stand by Ukraine for as long as necessary with deliveries of weapons, and with humanitarian and financial support."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock

This handout photograph taken Sept. 9, 2022, released Sept. 11, shows Ukrainian soldiers loading an abandoned Russian military vehicle on a trailer during the Ukrainian Army counter-offensive in Kharkiv region. (General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces / AFP)

"The Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do -- showing its back", quipped a jubilant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he mocked Russia's response to Ukraine's long anticipated counteroffensive, retaking huge swaths of Ukraine's northeast from Russian military occupation. Posting a video of Ukrainian soldiers hoisting the national flag over another town the counteroffensive reclaimed.

 

Sunday saw Ukrainian troops pressing their counteroffensive in the country's northeast, in the bleak shadow of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant's state of potential meltdown. The plant in the south of the country was shut down completely in hopes of preventing a radiation disaster caused by fighting that raged not far from the plant complex.

 

Kyive's success in reclaiming Russia-occupied areas in the Kharkiv region has forced Moscow to withdraw its troops. Ostensibly to prevent them from being surrounded. In the process left behind was significant amounts of weapons and munitions as a result of the hasty retreat, falling neatly into the hands of the Ukrainian military who will make good use of it all.

 

Izyum, considered an important command and supply hub for Russia's northern front has been taken by the 95th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "Everything around is destroyed, but we will restore everything. Izyum was, is, and will be Ukraine", said Yuriy Kochevenko of the 95th brigade in a video he posted showing the empty central city square surrounded by destroyed buildings.

 

Meanwhile, Ukraine's nuclear energy operator announced the reconnection of the nuclear power plant to Ukraine's electricity grid, enabling engineers to shut down the last operational reactor in order to safeguard the plant amidst the surrounding battles.

 

Ukraine's military chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyy, announced Ukraine's forces had recaptured about 3,000 square kilometres since the counteroffensive began. Ukrainian troops are only 50 kilometres from the border with Russia. Ukrainian troops have reclaimed control of over 40 settlements in the region, according to Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

 

Fighting Racism with Racism

"In response to the Canadian government cutting anti-racism funding for an organization whose co-founder has a history of antisemitic tweets, The Lawfare Project, in partnership with RE-LAW LLP, just submitted a FOIA request to find out why the Department of Canadian Heritage worked with this organization."

"The Community Media Advocacy Centre received $133,800 from the Department of Canadian Heritage, according to Housing, Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen. The funding, which was meant for an anti-racism strategy for Canadian broadcasting, went to an organization whose senior consultant, Laith Marouf, made antisemitic comments."

"Justin Trudeau's government said it will take steps to ensure this does not happen again. However, The Lawfare Project is seeking to find out how this happened in the first place."

"The Lawfare Project has requested copies of all communications between the government and the Community Media Advocacy Centre and/or Marouf. The organization also requested copies of all documents — including briefing notes, reports, memos, media lines, and communications — relating to the Community Media Advocacy Centre."

"The purpose of the FOIA request is to compel the government to disclose key documents and communications that should uncover how they came to form this absurd partnership, when they discovered Marouf’s virulent antisemitic views, and why this was discovered only after contracts were signed, funds were disbursed, and some of CMAC’s programs and projects took place."

 

"The FOIA request is an important step to find out how Canadian taxpayer money could have funded Jew-hatred. It is unacceptable to say that this merely slipped through the cracks. We are determined to investigate exactly how the Department of Canadian Heritage funded this organization."

"How can people trust a system that provides anti-racism funding to racists themselves? Jewish Canadians should not have to worry about whether or not their taxpayer money is going directly to fund conspiracy theories."

Brooke Goldstein, Founder and Executive Director, The Lawfare Project 

Housing, Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen has asked Canadian Heritage to 'look closely at the situation' in response to what he called 'unacceptable behaviour' by Laith Marouf, a senior consultant involved in a government-funded project to combat racism in broadcasting. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

 

The strange carelessness and oblivion of the current Liberal-led government of Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau which goes into overdrive when a citizen uses crude language to address his frustration with the mandates and misappropriation of government funds along with excessive taxes reflecting this government's fixation on destroying Western Canada's industries revolving around its natural energy resources, feigning outrage that a Cabinet minister would be met with hostility was used as a devious move to distract the attention of the public from yet another government outrageous stumble. 

 

A well-known user of social media who aims spitefully insulting comments at minority groups, at Western governments, at Blacks and Indigenous peoples, and above all, at venting venom at Jews and the state of Israel, inveigled his way as a professional communicator into various places of trust, coming away with hefty contracts from a number of government ministries. The man, a racist whose bigotry encompassed a wide range of victims, was hired by Heritage Canada to operate a number of training sessions for Canadian media on anti-racism.

 

Any reasonable onlooker might feel it should be standard procedure when handing out lucrative contracts to those posing as professional communicators to deduce through an internet search of social media what his qualifications might be and whether the candidate has a clean record on what he claimed to be anti-racism credentials. None, apparently did. The contract from Heritage Canada was launched in May and at his first session, Laith Marouf, (the founder and principal communicator and sole employee of the profesional group he established -- Community Media Advocacy Centre -- aside from his wife), began his first lecture with a scathing attack on Jews and on 'apartheid' Israel.

 

It took a casual search by a telecommunications consultant to discover an unfolding situation, where a serial social media poster of vile racist commentary to reveal the man's background with the foreground of a government-of-Canada-sponsored program on anti-racism. The absurdity of this sordid connection could be lost on no unbiased mind. A Liberal Member of Parliament Antony Housefather, become aware of the situation with this man and spoke to his ministerial colleague, MP Ahmed Hussen, warning him that the man he had publicly praised and co-signed a contract with was a racist. To no avail.

 

Finally, when the story broke and was reported in the news, Minister Hussen was appalled, stating the government mantra that "anti-semitism has no place in Canada", and that he intended to demand an explanation from the Community Media Advocacy Centre, why it had hired a racist as a senior consultant. This, from a senior government minister who had earlier praised the man stating how proud his government was to launch such a program with the estimable assistance of the consultant, beaming beside him in a public announcement.

 

The Lawfare Project has launched an investigation, requesting information from the government of Canada through a freedom of information request. The investigation is to take place with the partnership of RE-LAW LLP, a Toronto law firm. This is what David Elmaleh, a partner at RE-LAW had to say:

"The government's use of taxpayer funds in this instance is particularly concerning. We are pleased to be assisting the Lawfare Project in its quest to bring these issues of vital public importance into the public domain. The public deserves to know what transpired, and why."

 

The Lawfare Project was founded for the express purpose of bringing justice into the environment of racial denigration of Jews in general and vilification of the State of Israel in particular. And they have been fairly busy. Through the unflaggng work of its executive director, human rights lawyer Brooke Goldstein, they have been "defending the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and fighting discrimination wherever we see it".

 

In the current and growing atmosphere of antisemitism, the Lawfare Project saw Kuwait Airways terminate half of its American operations and inter-European flight routes as a result of its discrimination practised on Israeli passport-holders. Corporations have been stopped from implementing BDS policies through counselling on the legal implications of discriminatory commercial conduct. The U.S. Congress has agreed to hold the United Nations to account for its ongoing promotion and inciting of violent radicalization in Palestinian children through UNRWA refugee camps.

 

Palestinian youths hold weapons during a military-style graduation ceremony after being trained at one of the Hamas-run Liberation Camps in Gaza City in 2015.(Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

 

Foreign Actor Interference Activity : China/Canada

"[Support for Chinese] reunification [with Taiwan is a] sacred mission of all Chinese sons and daughters at home and abroad."

"Chinese Canadians overseas will firmly support the Chinese government's political stance and fight against any external forces that try to split and undermine China's unity."

Chinese Canadian association joint declaration, Dawa News

"[Chinese Canadians consider Taiwan and China to be] one family. So why do we organize activities like this? Because we still have feelings for our country of origin and the hometowns we grew up in."

"We don't want to see people on both sides of the [Taiwan] strait to continue to argue with each other."

Pifeng Hu, honorary president, Peace and Development Forum of Canada, Richmond, British Columbia

"Let me ask you a question: Will Canadians agree if Quebec wants to be independent? Will the United Kingdom be happy if Scotland wants to be independent?"

"You can't have that double standard [toward China]."

"[U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan was a] publicity stunt [designed to pull China into war]."

"I was once told by other Chinese immigrants to go back to China. I replied, it's totally fine that you dislike my opinions. However, it's my personal choice to stay here or to leave."

Hilbert Yiu, former chairman, Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver

"[Canada should] pause and think [and back off from being a cheerleader for the United States]."

"We are departing from our traditional role as peacemakers."

"In the past, Canada had been unbiased when there was a conflict between nationals or political entities."

"[1.8 million Chinese Canadians would be] disgusted [if Taiwan was used as a pawn in conflict]."

David Choi, national executive chair, National Congress of Chinese Canadians

 

Canada has a significant number of Chinese-Canadians integrated into its general population comprised of people from all over the world, as a country of immigrants. With greater numbers of immigrants emigrating to Canada from their home countries globally on an annual basis, not to mention the tens of thousands of refugees who are also accepted as landed immigrants (and in good time, citizens) of this country where a cornucopia of ethnic groups and a babel of languages can be seen and heard on the streets of any Canadian city.

Chinese have a long history of citizenship in Canada. Originally brought over as a hard-working labour base in the 19th century when the country began its unification program of railroads from coast to coast to coast, a long, arduous project that included cutting tunnels and laying rails through the Rocky Mountains and the Coastal Mountains of Alberta and British Columbia. When Chinese later wanted to immigrate, a steep 'head tax' to dissuade them was applied by a racist government that wanted only white Europeans.

 

In the last several decades however, China has called upon its expatriate community to heed the call of the motherland by supporting the government in Beijing's surreptitious methods of gaining influence and aiding China in its long-range plans of pulling countries into its economic, social and political orbit.  Confucius Institutes were installed in universities across the country eager for investment, where Chinese history, customs and language would be taught. A potential academic bonus screening a bid for increased Communist Party of China influence.

China's increasingly tyrannical demands on other nations for unquestioned respect despite its human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang, its clever manipulation of consumer markets, wiping industrial production off the map for most countries that saw its blue-collar jobs disappearing to Chinese lower wage economy, Beijing's strident belligerence in the South and East China seas reflecting its territorial ambitions to its neighbours' deficit, and its slow and steady acquisition of the world's rare earth resources while calling upon Chinese abroad to support Beijing's ambitions through the Belt and Road and other initatives have put the West at odds with China.

 

China's abrogation of the treaty it signed promising a fifty-year autonomy for Hong Kong, placed the world on notice that the population-and-trade colossus was serious about its expansionist plans. It was clear that Taiwan was next in line to be drawn directly into Beijing's sphere of control. A long-autonomous, resourceful, wealthy democracy, Taiwanese and their government have no wish to accede to Beijing's demand for unification.  In presenting an aggressive agenda toward the island of Taiwan, defiant of the island nation's refusal, China's threats and bullying tactics have turned the eyes of the West in its direction.

In the wake of Nancy Pelosi's senior U.S. diplomatic visit to Taiwan that aroused Beijing to a rage of threats and violent intimidation, Canadian parliamentarians have also announced plans of a trade mission to Taiwan. Leading to Beijing trying to exert pressure on Canada's government not to recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Accordingly, 87 Chinese groups signed a letter published in a Chinese-Canadian newspaper pledging fealty on behalf of all Chinese-Canadians, to Beijing's assertion of 'one China' including Taiwan.

The truth is, by no means do these groups represent the best interests of Canadian-Chinese as a whole. Chinese who originated from mainland China are represented by these groups, but certainly not Chinese originally from Hong Kong, or Taiwanese Chinese n Canada, much less Tibetans and Uyghurs from China all of whom deplore Beijing's political trajectory. Taiwan denies it has ever been part of China and that it will ever in the future join China.

To use Quebec and Scotland's positions of discontent with the nations they are linked to as a comparison with Taiwan is ingenuous at best, deliberately misconstruing their positions, since if through a referendum either population voted for separation, it would be honoured by the nations involved, albeit sadly and reluctantly. Beijing has no such intentions; instead it plans a military invasion of Taiwan to unseat its government and absorb the island state just as it did Tibet.

"And again, I'm not saying (organizations were repeating views at the behest of foreign governments) that's happening in this case, but this is where my concern is."

:What I would like to be sure of is that all organizations are expressing their own personal views, and not passing on the views of another unnamed actor because then that, I think, is problematic."

David Muilroney, former Canadian ambassador to China

"[The Dawa news letter forwarded to her by many Taiwanese Canadians expressed views] not acceptable at all by all overseas Taiwanese."

"I don't know if the strategy is useful for others, but it's useless to Taiwanese Canadians."

Angel Liu, director-general, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Vancouver

A soldier holds a Taiwan national flag during a military exercise in Hsinchu County, northern Taiwan.. (Chiang Ying-ying / AP)