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)