Imperialist propaganda may have led to murder in B.C.

Canadian monarchists are trying to blame the Iranian government for a killing apparently committed by supporters of the Shah. This type of inversion of reality underpins discussion of Iran, masking a fanaticism that likely contributed to the murder of Masood Masjoody.

On Saturday the Vancouver police reported the arrest of two suspects in the killing of Masjoody. Mehdi Ahmadzadeh and Arezou Soltani were charged with first degree murder.

A former SFU professor involved in many legal disputes, Masjoody disappeared in early February.

Opponents of the Iranian government immediately accused Tehran of murdering him. A UK Guardian headline, for instance, read “Iranian mathematician missing in Canada may have been targeted by Tehran, activists say.”

This frame dominated the discussion of his disappearance despite the fact Masjoody was suing the son of Iran’s former Shah Reza Pahlavi.

While the police haven’t cited any motive for the murder — if there was evidence of Tehran’s involvement it would have been mentioned — the two individuals charged are staunch monarchists. Masjoody had tweeted that the two individuals charged with his murder wanted to kill him because of his opposition to Pahlavi. There’s a photo circulating of one of them with Israeli, US and monarchist flags and another of both of them with Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.

The suspected murder may represent an escalation of the authoritarian, even fascistic, tide sweeping large swaths of the Iranian community. A week ago, a thousand members of the community did a fascist salute in downtown Vancouver and an Iranian counter protester at Saturday’s Al Quds rally in Toronto brought an effigy of a lynched Palestinian.

Despite the police suggesting the killing was committed by monarchists, leading Iranian spokespeople continue to suggest the opposite. Prominent monarchist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay, whose father ran the Tehran Sheraton hotel until the end of the Shah’s rule, strongly suggested it was a government hit. The wife of former Conservative minister Peter McKay then claimed the killing represented a threat to opponents of the Islamic Republic. “For years,” she wrote, “we have been warning Canadian officials to wake up to the export of the regime’s Islamist extremist ideology here in Canada, as well as concerns about funding networks, safe haven for regime officials in Canada, billions of dollars in money laundering, and the possibility of sleeper cells.”

Should we now worry about Pahlavist sleeper cells?

The bid to blame the Iranian government for a killing apparently committed by monarchists is connected to another crass inversion of reality. By promoting the “700 IRGC agents in Canada” storyline the media and politicians regularly claim Canada is a safe haven for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. But 22 months ago Canada listed the IRGC as a banned terrorist organization (its Quds Force was listed in 2012). It’s the only component of any state’s military on Canada’s terror list.

(Incredibly, the 700 IRGC members in Canada estimate comes from a group calling for Canada to list the IRGC as a terrorist group in a 2023 Global News article. Even if true it’s largely meaningless since the IRGC has nearly 200,000 members and Iran has mandatory military service so there are over a million former IRGC members.)

In another example of the absurdity of the ‘Canada is soft on Iran’ line, Ottawa broke off diplomatic relations with Tehran 15 years ago. The UK, France and most of the world have diplomatic ties with Iran.

At the same time Canada put Iran on its state sponsor of terrorism list. No other country is on that list (Syria was recently removed after a former Al Qaeda leader took charge of the country).

Additionally, Ottawa has imposed a slew of sanctions on Iran. After Russia, it’s probably Canada’s most sanctioned country and Ottawa has enabled the theft of Iranian government assets.

Suggesting Canada is soft on Iran is an absurd inversion of reality designed to justify and encourage further Canadian belligerence and imperialism. The “700 IRGC agents in Canada” storyline also gives licence to fanatic opponents of the Iranian government to intimidate community members opposed to imperialism.

Still, the ‘IRGC is overrunning Canada’ story line is promoted across the political spectrum. While it’s particularly popular with the Conservatives and aggressive Zionists, NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson has echoed it.

Adding a bizarre twist to the imperial propaganda, Green Party leader Elizabeth May recently told the House of Commons that members of the IRGC are obtaining baptismal certificates in the Anglican Church of Canada to hide their identities. May has yet to offer evidence for her claim.

Amidst a devastating US/Israeli war on Iran we must shun the imperial propaganda. It may even be leading to people being killed in Canada.

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