December 19, 2012 | Press Release

FDD Applauds Canada for Designating Iran’s Quds Force a Terrorist Group

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, DC – The Foundation for Defense of Democracies congratulates Canada for designating the Iranian regime’s Quds Force as a terrorist organization.

The designation under Canada’s Criminal Code follows Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision, in September 2012, to designate the Iranian regime as a state sponsor of terrorism, terminate Ottawa’s diplomatic ties with it, and expel its diplomats from Canadian soil.

FDD applauds Canada for these measures, and calls on it to add Iran’s entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to its terrorist list, which would subject the organization’s operatives and sponsors in Canada to criminal penalties.

Canada continues to lead the way among U.S. allies in punishing the Iranian regime for its terrorist activities, human rights abuses and nuclear weapons development.

“The Quds Force is the overseas arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said FDD Executive Director Mark Dubowitz, who heads FDD’s Iran and human rights projects. “Its designation as a terrorist organization shows that Canadians rightly recognize the danger it poses to international peace and security.”

“Prime Minister Harper and his government should be congratulated for this important step, and go further by adding the IRGC in its entirety to the terrorism list,” added Sheryl Saperia, FDD’s Director for Canada.

“Sworn by a voluntary oath of loyalty to Iran’s Supreme Leader, the IRGC directs the regime’s nuclear program, its repression of the Iranian people, and the Quds Force’s terrorist activities abroad,” Saperia continued. “It epitomizes all that is wrong with the clerical regime.”

Dubowitz and Saperia have testified on the IRGC before Canadian parliamentary commissions, and appeared extensively in Canadian media, arguing in favor of designating both it and its Quds Force.

In September 2012, FDD published Terror in the Peaceable Kingdom, a groundbreaking volume co-edited by Canadian Senator Linda Frum and FDD senior fellow Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, which documents ongoing terrorist activities in Canada.

To discuss the Canadian government’s action on the Quds Force, FDD’s work on Iran, or arrange interviews with its scholars, please contact David Donadio at [email protected]. Experts include Sheryl Saperia, Mark Dubowitz, FDD senior fellow and former CIA Iran officer Reuel Marc Gerecht, FDD senior fellow Emanuele Ottolenghi, FDD President Clifford D. May, visiting fellow and National Post columnist Jonathan Kay, and FDD senior fellow Daveed Gartenstein-Ross.

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The Foundation for Defense of Democracies is a non-profit, non-partisan policy institute dedicated exclusively to promoting pluralism, defending democratic values, and fighting the ideologies that drive terrorism.

Issues:

Iran Iran Sanctions