Absolutely. Even though in April of this year the regime launched 300 missiles directly into Israel from Iranian soil, traditionally they carry out their terror through proxies or criminal gangs. They were found guilty by Argentinian courts for the 1994 bombings of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people, and the embassy as well. Just a few days ago, it was reported in the news that the regime had hired a top European gang to plant a bomb in the Israeli embassy in Sweden.
Here in Canada, Hells Angels gang members were hired to carry out an assassination plot against a dissident Iranian couple in Maryland, Washington, for $350,000. Eastern European gang members were also hired by the regime to assassinate a top activist in New York. Luckily, they caught the perpetrators, but Jimmy Sharmahd, a German national and U.S. resident, was not so lucky: He was kidnapped and now faces the death penalty in Iran.
Journalists at Iran International news agency have also had attempted assassination plots against them, and the U.K. found that there were 10 foiled kidnapping or assassination plots there. CSIS also identified at least three Canadians on a regime target list. Of course, you all know about the shooting down of the PS752 flight carrying 176 people, with 55 of those people being Canadians and 30 of them permanent residents. The IRGC was responsible for that.
I myself have been threatened numerous times that if I did not stop my activities, I would be targeted or my loved ones would be. Just a few weeks ago, my organization, Iranian Justice Collective, was here on the Hill meeting with parliamentarians, and one of my colleagues, when she returned back home, had a call from her mother, and was then passed on to an IRGC official. He had said to her that if she didn't stop her activities, she would end up like the women that she's trying to defend. We escaped Iran to feel safer here in Canada, yet we're always looking over our shoulders when we're doing speeches, when we're rallying. We're always scanning the audience to see who's there.
As you mentioned, investigative piece by Global News found that there were 700 IRGC regime affiliates here in Canada. Nine of them are set to be deported, but what we're suggesting is that instead of deporting them, we hope Canada exercises its universal jurisdiction and opens trials against them and sets an example that human rights abuses cannot go ahead with impunity.