As a tight network of Iranian terrorists expands as a "fifth column" In Canada, there have been calls to shut down the Iranian embassy there.
Iranian Canadian activists Shadi Paveh and Shabnam Assadollahi have translated an interview with Hamid Mohammadi, an Iranian official working as Cultural Counselor to the Embassy in Canada; as released by Fox News, this alarming article reveals that Iran has been using its embassy in Canada to mobilize loyalists of Islamic Republic to infiltrate the Canadian Government and, some terrorism experts worry, attack the United States.
The interview makes known Iran's call for all Iranian-Canadians to "resist being melted into the dominant Canadian culture," to aspire to "occupy high-level key positions…. be of service to our beloved Iran."
Mohammadi also acknowledged that the embassy's work in Canada has included "establishing and strengthening new centres for Iranian studies and Farsi language" — as well as a student exchange program between Canada and Iran. While Canada forbids Iran from opening consulates or cultural centres outside of Ottawa, this rule is not enforced: Macleans Magazine, for example, exposed the existence of an Iranian embassy front in Toronto in 2010.
David Harris, a security specialist and former Chief of Strategic Planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, also issued a statement warning about the level of danger that Iran poses to Canadian and American security:
"Iran's Ottawa Embassy operates with aggressive purposes that appear to be well beyond the bounds of international law, civilized norms and, of course, the interests of Canadian -- and American -- national security.
"Through espionage and subversion, the Embassy projects Tehran's will, relying, in part, on Iranian newcomers from among Canada's vast immigrant inflows to intimidate loyal Canadians of Iranian background, penetrate government and infrastructural interests and generally contribute to Tehran's influence in Canadian life.
"Iranian Canadians with whom I have spoken estimate that between fifty and seventy percent of the 60,000 Iranians who settled in Canada during the past ten years, are loyal to the mullah regime. Especially at a time of Iran's continuing aggressive foreign operations and the risk of hostile Iranian action arising from any necessary Western strikes against Tehran's nuclear facilities, Canadians and their American neighbors have good reason to be concerned about the deteriorating North American security situation wrought by this penetration problem.
"It is an urgent matter of national security and public safety that the Canadian Government come to terms with the nature and extent of the expanding Iranian threat against, and within, Canada's territory.
"Government can begin -- but only begin -- to deal with the developing hazard by closing forthwith Iran's Embassy, and declaring a moratorium on immigration from Iran, save and except for bona fide refugees who have been determined to constitute no threat to Canada, the United States and other allies."
The translators, Shadi Paveh and Shabnam Assadollahi, sent out a letter to Canadian Members of Parliament, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, warning them about the dangers of the Iranian embassy in Canada and -- to protect Canadian citizens, given the dubious activities of the embassy -- emphatically requesting its closure.
Paveh and Assadollahi attached an article to their letter; the article revealed how far the Iranian regime is willing to go in using its embassies to coerce and recruit Iranian citizens to execute its mission. In the article, Abolfazl Eslami, a former diplomat from Iran who worked as a counsellor at the Iranian embassy in Japan, while emphasizing Canada, warns about Iran propagating its agenda globally through its embassies.
Eslami became the first Iranian diplomat in Eastern Asia to resign from service to the Islamic regime. He points out the corruption and manipulations of Iranian Canadians by Iranian Intelligence Services; the brutal rape, torture and murder of Zahra Kazemi at Evin prison, and the subsequent sabotage of the case by the direct involvement of the prosecutor, the Judge and other Iranians living in Canada.
Eslami wrote a letter to his colleagues in the foreign affairs ministry asking them to join him in distancing themselves from the violence and oppression of Iran, then pleaded with the dignitaries to come to their senses.
It is no accident that Iran specifically used the cultural counselor in Ottawa to advance its agenda. Under the cultural domain, Hamid Mohammadi was allowed to work covertly through cultural events and activities in which many Iranians and Muslim immigrants participated, especially Islamic and mosque leaders, and those in political and educational ranks.
Eslami indicates that such tactics are not new; that Iran has been manipulating Iranians in Canada and other countries for years. He also reveals that detailed personal and job information of Iranians and Muslim immigrants, and the level of their political and economic influence in the host country, is collected over time and then confidentially recorded in computer software. The most influential ones are then hand-picked to infiltrate and influence the Canadian government's image of the Islamic regime, thereby affecting the political decision-making process and affecting policies.
Under multicultural Canada, the promotion of bridge-building and diversity are enshrined policies, advanced by freedom-loving and agenda-driven enemies of democracy alike. Left unchecked, these policies provide the fertile soil for Iranian mischief to grow. A chilling fact pointed out by Assadollahi is that Iran's cultural consulates working overseas are directly supervised by delegates from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office, with the strict expectations of the embassies to find the weakness of that country and to increase its own supporters politically, economically and culturally. The coordinated efforts of the Ministry of Intelligence, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ministry of Islamic Cultural Communications and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are also at work according to translator Assadollahi.
In a hopeful gesture, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews acknowledged that the Iranian embassy is actively recruiting its nationals. He went on to say that coercion of Canadians by the Iranian embassy -- and any such coercion -- must be stopped. That statement followed Paveh's and Assadollahi' whistle blowing about Iran's recruitment program in Canada, about which they said they they said they had privately warned officials weeks earlier.
The partnership between Canada and the U.S. is also emphasized by Iran, hence the call by the Iranian culture counsellor, Hamid Mohammadi, to infiltrate the Canadian government and attack the United States. In this strategy, the Islamic Republic states that as the Canadian government has always co-operated with the American government in political affairs and behaved negatively towards Iran, attention must be given to recruiting Iranians as well as Muslim immigrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and other Islamic countries; and that they must be trained to neutralize the negative behaviour of Canada against the Islamic Republic.
Iran's engineering of plots against Canada and other countries also involves University campuses and schools. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Iranian embassy in Canada works on Canadian campuses through Iranian student groups. Under its "education advisory," the Iranian Embassy in Canada was planning to sponsor, in mid-July, a three-day Iranian Students Convention in Cornwall, Ontario, but after pressure from Iranian-Canadian academics, it was postponed indefinitely.
We know what the Iranian regime is planning in Canada and other Western nations; these plans urgently demand coordinated action by Western authorities. But instead, as Iran continues its infiltrations and the build-up of its nuclear arsenals, the West remains inert while continuing endless talks about what it should do as this dangerous regime progresses. So long as we remain politically correct over the security of our nations and citizens, we remain vulnerable to an Iranian regime bent on conquering the West and destroying the nation of Israel.
Multiculturalism often seems just to give rise to the enemies of democracy, who use increasing Muslim immigration in the West to advance their own agenda. Many Iranian-Canadian activists, however, oppose the current Iranian regime and are calling for the closure of their own country-of-origin's embassies. The West should heed these warnings and immediately put in place strategies that support them.
Rod Baharloo