Canada joined the United States and 12 European allies Thursday in condemning what they said is a “growing number of state threats” by Iran’s intelligence services against people abroad, including dissidents, journalists and Jewish citizens of their countries.
The joint statement issued by the U.S. State Department called attempts by Iran to “kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America” a “clear violation” of those nations’ sovereignty.
“These services are increasingly collaborating with international criminal organizations to target journalists, dissidents, Jewish citizens, and current and former officials in Europe and North America,” the statement said.
“This is unacceptable.”
The countries said they are committed to working together to prevent such attacks and called on Iran to “immediately put an end to such illegal activities in our respective territories.”
The statement comes just over a month after the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear facilities and negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, following nearly two weeks of attacks between the two Middle East adversaries. The Trump administration has been seeking to bring an end to Iran’s nuclear program and cut off its support of terrorist proxies in the region.
U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott did not say if any specific threat was behind the timing of the statement when asked Thursday.
“What I can say is these are discussions that have been happening with our partners for a long time, and it’s an issue that we take incredibly seriously,” he told reporters at a briefing.
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Iran has long been accused by the U.S., Canada and European nations of conducting transnational repression operations against Iranian dissidents abroad, as well as critics of the regime in Tehran.
Former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler, a vocal critic of the Iranian regime, told Global News last year his security detail was temporarily increased to its “highest level” due to an imminent assassination threat.
Cotler said he was first told Iran was behind an “imminent and lethal threat on my life” in November 2023 — shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas — and has been under RCMP protection ever since.
“I see this as a phenomenon not related to me personally, but to the larger threatening concern of transnational repression and assassination,” he said.
“This has to be seen as a wake-up call for the community of democracies because this is a direct threat to our security, to our democracy and to our human rights.”
Iran has been accused of hiring Hells Angels members in Canada to carry out killings, and immigration officials have found over a dozen senior Iranian regime members illegally living in Canada to date.
Documents released by the public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada revealed Iranian Canadians are increasingly concerned about former officials from the Iranian regime targeting diaspora members and community organizations.
Canada “is known as a safe haven for Islamic regime officials and their families,” Tehran-born human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay said in her presentation to the Hogue Commission during public consultations last year, according to the documents.
Canada listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization last year, and declared senior Iranian government and security agency officials inadmissible to Canada due to involvement in terrorism and human rights violations.
Yet the government has also had difficulty removing former regime officials from the country, with deportation orders issued to just three individuals out of 12 ongoing cases at the Immigration and Refugee Board, officials said in June.
The FBI and U.S. prosecutors last year revealed multiple alleged Iranian plots to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump in the run-up to November’s U.S. presidential election.
A threat on Trump’s life from Iran prompted additional security in the days before a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania where Trump was shot in the ear, according to U.S. officials. But officials at the time said they did not believe Iran was connected to that assassination attempt.
The U.S. Justice Department announced in November that an Iranian plot to kill Trump in the weeks before the presidential election had been thwarted.
Trump ordered a U.S. military strike on Iran during his first term that killed Qassem Soleimani, who led the IRGC’s Quds Force. Iran vowed revenge against Trump and members of his first administration, including his former national security advisor John Bolton and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
The criminal complaint that revealed the alleged plot against Trump also said two people were arrested and charged for their alleged involvement in a plot to murder an American-Iranian journalist and critic of the Iranian regime in New York.
The FBI also said during the U.S. election that Iranian hackers sought to interest then-president Joe Biden’s campaign in information allegedly stolen from Trump’s campaign last summer. There’s no evidence that any of the recipients responded, officials said at the time.
—With files from Global’s Stewart Bell and the Associated Press
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