Friday, September 7, 2012
Montreal –M.P. Irwin Cotler, International Chair of the Responsibility to Prevent Coalition on the dangers of a nuclear, genocidal, terrorist-supporting, and rights-violating Iran, said today that “The Canadian government’s decision to close the Canadian Embassy in Iran – and expel Iranian diplomats from Canada – is as important for the reasons underlying the decision, as the decision itself.”
“In a word,” continued Cotler, “Iran has emerged as a clear and present danger to international peace and security manifested in the four-fold Iranian threat: Iran is in standing violation of international law prohibiting nuclear weaponization; Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide prohibited under the Genocide Convention; Iran is a leading state-sponsor of international terrorism; and, finally, Iran is engaged in the massive domestic repression of the rights of its own people.”
Cotler, co-Chair of the Interparliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran, said that three other considerations underpinned the Canadian decision – Iran’s complicity in Syria’s atrocities; Iran’s complicity in assaults upon diplomats from Central Asia to Central America; and the intimidation of Canadian-Iranians in Canada.”
At the same time, Cotler said that “The decision highlights – and indeed calls for – a set of initiatives to combat these Iranian threats, including:
· Listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist entity under Canadian law;
· Undertaking mandated legal remedies under international law to hold the Iranian leadership to account for its state-sanctioned incitement to genocide, which has intensified dramatically of late;
· Enhanced sanctions for Iran’s defiance of international law in its nuclear weaponization program;
· Sanctioning major human rights violators in the Iranian political and juridical leadership for their criminal violations of the human rights of the Iranian people.”
Cotler concluded: “The very exemplary case made by the Canadian government for closing the Canadian Embassy in Iran, is the same case warranting these targeted remedies.”