The Long Reach of the Islamic Republic of Iran

"After October 7, my wife and I attended the March for Israel in Washington, D.C."

"When we flew back to Montreal, security asked us not to leave the airport."

"Security personnel spoke to me and informed me of what has been characterized as imminent and lethal threats, without going into further details."

Irwin Cotler, Human rights campaigner 

CBC News has confirmed that the RCMP has foiled a plot backed by Iran to kill former justice minister Irwin Cotler. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

 

The Iranian assassination plot targeting the Jewish former politician and internationally respected human rights advocate was prevented from being borne out by those assigned to assassinate a former federal justice minister and attorney general of Canada, by Canadian security forces' alert protective reaction. He had been advised that he was the target of an "imminent threat of assassination from Iranian agents within 48 hours."

The RCMP had given clear warning to Irwin Cotler, known as a defender of Israel and of human rights everywhere in the world. He serves at the present time as international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights based in Canada, which he had founded in 2015. As a human rights lawyer of great renown, he had declared, as an international legal scholar, that "the community of democracies including Canada does not understand the threat of Iran".

 

The 84-year-old Cotler was placed  under 24 hour, seven-days-a-week RCMP protection following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led cross-border massacre in Israel. That protection included the use of bulletproof vehicles, armed bodyguards and other security measures reflecting the level of the threat involved. Finally, last week Mr. Cotler was informed that the threat level had been significantly reduced.

Authorities had identified two suspects in the assassination plot. Whether they were arrested or had left the country once their scheme had been identified and they were placed under surveillance, has not been divulged publicly.

His political activism brought him to the attention of the Islamic Republic of Iran for his work representing Iranian political prisoners. He continues to call out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a terrorist entity. That he is a strong advocate for Israel, and that he had been appointed Canada's special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism did not escape the   Iranian Republic's notice, as well.

Irwin Cotler, former special envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, speaks at the Antisemitism: Face It, Fight It conference in Ottawa Oct. 17, 2023. Photo by Justin Tang /The Canadian Press