Canada foiled multiple Iranian attempts against dissidents, spy chief says
Canada disrupted multiple potentially fatal plots by Iranian intelligence services targeting perceived enemies on Canadian soil, spy chief Dan Rogers said on Thursday.
Canada disrupted multiple potentially fatal plots by Iranian intelligence services targeting perceived enemies on Canadian soil, spy chief Dan Rogers said on Thursday.
“In particularly alarming cases over the last year, we’ve had to reprioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime,” Rogers said in a public speech streamed live in Ottawa.
“In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada,” added Rogers, who leads the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012 and has issued a series of sanctions over Tehran’s human rights abuses and designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist entity in 2024.
There are nearly 300,000 people in Canada of Iranian descent according to a 2021 Census, making it the world's second-largest diaspora community after the United States.
Rogers described the actions of Iran, along with those of India and China, as "transnational repression" which his agency along with law enforcement were determined to confront.
Canada has levied a series of sanctions on Iran for human rights abuses since the Women, Life Freedom protest movement after the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in morality police custody in 2022.
In March, Canada imposed sanctions under the Special Economic Measures (Iran) Regulations against three Iranian individuals and four entities for what it described as gross human rights violations, including repression of women and girls.
The move meant 208 Iran-linked individuals and 254 entities in total were sanctioned by authorities.
