By AFP – Agence France Presse
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Former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler (L) said he was targeted by an alleged Iranian plot
Brendan Smialowski
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Tehran is escalating attacks on dissidents and rights defenders abroad, Canada’s former justice minister Irwin Cotler told local media Tuesday, after revealing he had recently been the target of an alleged Iranian assassination plot.
“We’re talking about a phenomenon of transnational repression and assassination, and Iran has begun to target now in a more intensified way dissidents, human rights defenders, political leaders,” Cotler said in an interview with Canadian broadcaster CTV.
“It’s a phenomenon that represents really a threat to our national security, our national sovereignty, our collective human rights.”
Authorities advised Cotler on October 26 that he faced an imminent threat of assassination within 48 hours by Iranian agents, his organization said Monday.
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, where Cotler is international chair, also confirmed a Globe and Mail report saying authorities had tracked two suspects in the plot.
Tehran denied the allegations, calling them “ridiculous storytelling and in line with the misinformation campaign against Iran.”
Cotler commented to CTV that his case should be “a wake-up call for the community of democracies to hold the Iranian regime accountable.”
The 84-year-old was Canada’s justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006.
He retired from politics in 2015 but has remained active with many associations that campaign for human rights around the world.
Cotler, who is Jewish and a strong backer of Israel, has also advocated globally to have Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps listed as a terrorist entity.
Ottawa, which severed diplomatic ties with Iran more than a decade ago, listed the Revolutionary Guard as a banned terrorist group in June.