Liberal MP Irwin Cotler's statement re. Iran

Good to see that the Liberal party of Canada still has some individuals with  common sense. Someone like MP Irwin Cotler makes up for at least five of his nutty colleagues.  

This MP is absolutely right.  Closing our embassy in Iran and expelling the Iranian diplomats from Ottawa is not enough.  Iranian agents in the guise  of  "freedom of speech" activists, have to be rooted out and expelled as well or if they are Canadian citizens then they should be tried as traitors.

The Conservative govt. must go the extra mile to safeguard our country.

....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 for the decision itself. In a word, Iran has emerged as a clear and present danger to international peace and security.

The Iranian threat is fourfold. 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.

Certainly 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 living in Canada.

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 — something the federal government has yet to do.

Enhancing 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.

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.

In this last regard, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has, yet again, issued a statement condemning the recent “offensive and inflammatory statements” of the Iranian leadership. Curiously, while the statement also cited international law as authority for the condemnation — that “In accordance with the United Nations Charter, all members must refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State” — it failed to appreciate that international law requires juridical action to sanction such incitement, not just issue mere statements of disapproval.....

h/t: Pam