Iranian dissidents in Canada say they're being watched and under threat from Iranian regime

There are growing concerns from Iranian-Canadians who say they are being threatened, monitored and even followed at protests and outside their homes by affiliates of the Iranian regime who are here in Canada. 

"They know the view out of my apartment. They said it was a school. That I have three cats. They knew the friends that have come to my house," said Maryam Shafipour, an Iranian activist who now lives in Canada and who is speaking out against the regime despite the dangers. 

Last year, members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard — a branch of the Iranian forces designated as a terrorist organization in the U.S. — took that information about her life back to her sister in Iran, Shafipour said, and used it to try to threaten her family and lure her back to the country.

"After that I just cut my relationship with all my friends because I'm really scared,' said Shafipour. "I am just isolated now."

Shafipour has reason to be afraid. She once spent two months in solitary confinement in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison for "spreading propaganda against the system" — the same prison where Mahsa Amini was held. Amini's arrest on Sept. 13, reportedly for not following Iran's strict dress code, and death in detention has sparked months of major protests inside and outside Iran. 

Last week, for the first time, CSIS confirmed that it is investigating "several threats to life emanating from the Islamic Republic of Iran." 

But Shafipour and other activists spoken to by CBC News say they've had no help from Canadian police or government officials and don't feel like the threat here is being taken seriously.

Shafipour's not the only one who has been monitored in Canada.

In 2021, the FBI publicized details of a plot to kidnap Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad from her home in New York — part of that report revealed plots to kidnap three unnamed people here in Canada. 

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran even hired private investigators in Brooklyn, N.Y., and in Canada to spy on Alinejad and four other dissidents, according to court documents. 

Shafipour is worried the Iranian government hacked into her phone. Curious if there was indeed spyware on her phone, Shafipour sat with experts at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity lab in Toronto that helps human rights activists under threat of digital espionage. 

WATCH | 'Maybe they are already here,' says activist Maryam Shafipour:

She said she's grateful someone took her seriously, adding Canadian authorities hadn't looked into her case at all. 

"We know for a fact that they [Islamic Republic] have extensive technologies that enable them to drill right down into people's personal mobile phones, know where they are, with whom they're communicating with," said Ron Deibert, director of Citizen Lab.