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Ottawa warns Iranian embassy over alleged recruitment

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‘Don’t interfere’: Ottawa warns Iranian embassy over alleged recruitment of expats in Canada
Kathryn Blaze Carlson
11 July 2012
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/11/dont-interfere-ottawa-warns-embassy-after-accusations-iran-is-recruiting-expats-in-canada/
Canada’s Foreign Affairs department issued a warning Tuesday to Iranian diplomats who are allegedly using their Ottawa embassy to recruit Iranian-Canadians to serve the Islamic Republic’s interests.

“Iranian-Canadians have rejected the oppressive Iranian regime and have chosen to come to Canada to build better lives,” a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said in a statement to the National Post. “The Iranian Embassy should not interfere in their choices. Canadian security organizations will act to prevent threats and intimidation of Canadians.”

News of the alleged mobilization effort emerged this month in a Farsi-language interview given by Hamid Mohammadi, a cultural affairs counsellor attached to the Iranian embassy in Ottawa, to an Iran-based website directed at Iranian expatriates in Canada. In his interview with Iranians Residing Abroad, Mr. Mohammadi apparently urged Iranian-Canadians to “occupy high-level key positions” and “resist being melted into the dominant Canadian culture.”

Mr. Mohammadi, who estimated the Iranian-Canadian population at 500,000, said recent Iranian immigrants have “decisively preserved strong attachments and bonds to their homeland,” while the “younger second generation” is already “working in influential government positions.”

Most ominously, he mapped out how he says his country plans to recruit Iranian-Canadians under the guise of a cultural outreach program: “By 2031, the total immigrant population of Canada will increase by 64%, and the number of Iranians will increase due to birthrate,” he said. “So, therefore, we need to put into effect very concentrated cultural programs in order to enhance and nurture the culture in this fast-growing population. It is obvious that this large Iranian population can only be of service to our beloved Iran through these programs and gatherings.”

On Tuesday, Iran’s top diplomat to Canada said his embassy is following Canadian and international laws, outright dismissing Tuesday’s Ottawa Citizen report that Iranian-Canadians are being enlisted to serve Tehran.

“We strongly dismiss baseless allegations by [some] media that [the] ‘Iranian Embassy has been recruiting ethnic Iranians in Canada to be of service to Iran,’” Kambiz Sheikh-Hassan, the Iranian charge d’affaires, said in a statement.

Experts say Mr. Mohammadi’s startlingly blunt interview has not only jeopardized Canada’s national security reputation abroad, but also sparked very real fears of espionage, terrorist recruitment and a possible attack on the U.S. from north of the border............
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Canada keeping close eye on Iranian embassy recruitment allegations: John Baird
Kathryn Blaze Carlson
13 July 2012

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said on Friday his department is keeping a close eye on the Iranian embassy amid reports Iran is using its mission to recruit Iranian-Canadians to serve Tehran.

Speaking out for the first time since news emerged of an alleged mobilization scheme outlined by Iran’s cultural counselor in a Farsi-language interview, Mr. Baird said his department will “watch very closely” and that Ottawa takes the counselor’s statements “tremendously seriously.”

“Iranian-Canadians left Iran for a better life in Canada,” Mr. Baird told reporters on Friday morning. “It is completely inconsistent with any diplomatic mission for the Iranian mission in Ottawa to interfere with the liberties they enjoy in Canada.”



In his interview with an Iran-based website aimed at expatriates here, Hamid Mohammadi urged Iranian-Canadians to “occupy high-level key positions” and “resist being melted into the dominant Canadian culture.”

Mr. Mohammadi, who estimated the Iranian-Canadian population at 500,000, said recent Iranian immigrants have “decisively preserved strong attachments and bonds to their homeland,” while the “younger second generation” is already “working in influential government positions.”

Most ominously, he mapped out how he says his country plans to recruit Iranian-Canadians under the guise of a cultural outreach program: “By 2031, the total immigrant population of Canada will increase by 64%, and the number of Iranians will increase due to birthrate,” he said. “So, therefore, we need to put into effect very concentrated cultural programs in order to enhance and nurture the culture in this fast-growing population. It is obvious that this large Iranian population can only be of service to our beloved Iran through these programs and gatherings.”

Mr. Baird warned that Canadian authorities will “certainly take a look at any serious allegations that are raised in terms of [Iranian diplomats’] conduct.”

“Canada has taken a very tough stance against the regime in Tehran and we won’t allow them to disrupt the freedom and liberties of Canadians of Iranian origin,” he said.

A leading Canadian expert on diplomacy told the National Post on Thursday that Mr. Mohammadi’s remarks reveal the embassy is violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which explicitly states foreign diplomats have a “duty not to interfere in the internal affairs” of a host state.

“From Canada’s understanding of international law, yes they are [breaching the convention] because they’re seeking to recruit and utilize a population of Canadian citizens in ways that are clearly an interference with Canada’s domestic affairs,” said Michael Byers, the Canada research chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. “Promoting Iranian nationals to acquire positions of influence in Canadian government smacks of more than cultural outreach … If I were minister of foreign affairs, I’d be calling in the [highest-ranking Iranian diplomat] and asking for a clarification because that kind of intent is illegal and improper.”

A spokesperson for Mr. Baird said earlier this week Ottawa would “take action” against any foreign embassy that breaches Canadian or international law, although he would not specify what, if anything, has been done in the Iranian context.

Iran’s top diplomat to Canada has denied the embassy is recruiting ethnic Iranians here to be of service to Tehran, but Iranian-Canadian activists have been trying to shut down the office for years because they say it monitors and intimidates Iranian newcomers.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, one of Canada’s most recognizable Iranian-Canadians and the wife of National Defence Minister Peter MacKay, said the embassy is “not legitimate” and “has no purpose here.”

“The embassy in Ottawa sometimes uses cultural events as an excuse to spread their own propaganda,” said Ms. Afshin-Jam, a human rights activist who fled Iran in 1979 after her father was imprisoned and tortured.

Sayeh Hassan, a Toronto-based criminal lawyer who fled Iran 25 years ago, said the mission uses its ties to university student associations to infiltrate campuses, pointing to a recent event hosted at Carleton University in Ottawa last month that celebrated the religious and political teachings of Iran’s former theocratic ruler, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini.

Ms. Afshin-Jam was among the seven activists and academics who last month wrote to Carleton objecting to the June 2 event, which was organized by the Iranian Culture Association of Carleton University and the Cultural Centre of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The cultural centre confirmed to the National Post that it is affiliated with the Iranian embassy but declined to comment on the allegations. Last month, Maclean’s magazine revealed the head of the Carleton culture association is Ehsan Mohammadi, the son of the Iranian cultural counselor.

The younger Mohammadi told Postmedia News last month that Ms. Afshin-Jam and the other letter-writers were not justified in their concerns because “it is against the principles of Multiculuralism, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, freedom of speech which are the significant principles of the Constitution of Canada.”

 
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