It’s been an open secret for a year now: the esteemed Canadian human rights advocate, Irwin Cotler, 84, has been living under round-the-clock police protection in Montreal. But until recently, Cotler had heard only vague chatter about the source of the death threats. A month ago, on Oct. 26, the RCMP warned Cotler to stay home, under guard, because he was in imminent danger—within the next 48 hours—of being murdered by agents tied to Iran’s terrorist regime. The news was kept out of the media until a Globe and Mail story appeared in Nov. 18. Cotler, the founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and a former justice minister, confirmed it was all true. He has since heard that some suspects have been arrested in the U.S., and the threat level against his life has lowered somewhat. So Cotler is now turning his ordeal into a clarion call for an issue he’s been pushing for more than a decade: get Canada to wake up and pay attention to the dangers posed by Iran’s “transnational” interference in our country’s political and civil life, including targeted killings on Canadian soil. Cotler joins The CJN Daily‘s Ellin Bessner to discuss what he’s just been through, the antisemitic protests across Canada, and what Israel should do about the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Related links

• Why the Israeli Ambassador urged Canada to list the Iranian National Guard Corps as a terrorist organization in April 2024, in The CJN.
• Why Canadian Jewish leaders including Cotler have been warning about the threat from Iran for decades, in The CJN from 2010, and in 2018.
• Since 2017, Canada has laws banning listed Iranian nationals from entering Canada, and also banning any Canadians from helping to sell products or handle money or property for Iranian terror entities.
• Why Canada has been trying to deport 22 Iranians linked to human rights abuses and murder.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

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