Iranian Canadians join Jews in condemning Al Quds Day anti-Israel protests
Canadian Jewish groups are calling on authorities to shut down Iran-backed Al-Quds Day protests in four cities this weekend, but the Jewish community isn’t the only one troubled by the show of support for the theocratic, fundamentalist regime.
“Seeing these people chanting what I was hearing from those who were beating me on the streets of Tehran is traumatizing,” said Ghazal Shokri, an Iranian Canadian woman raised in Tehran under the oppressive thumbs of successive ayatollahs for 30 years of her life before fleeing to Canada in 2014.
She’s also been pepper-sprayed by steadfast supporters of the brutal regime, and described in an interview with National Post a time when they tried to strike her with a car as she innocently rode her bike.
Shokri is among many individuals and organizations voicing concerns about the events planned for Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver this Friday and Saturday and the message they send in Canada and to Iran and its supporters in the Middle East.
Established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Al-Quds — the Arabic name for Jerusalem, translating to “The Holy” or “The Holy Sanctuary” — occurs at the end of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan. While its stated purpose is to oppose Israel’s occupation of the city and express solidarity with Palestinians, the global events regularly feature calls for the destruction of Israel and the deaths of Israelis while expressing support for the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a terrorist group banned in Canada.
On Tuesday, the U.K. government approved a request from the London Metropolitan Police to ban the event scheduled for Sunday due to a risk of “severe public disorder — running the risk of injury to members of the public, protestors, police officers.” The ban, which includes any planned counter-protests, started on Wednesday and will last for one month, police said.
While the Met said it is normally well-prepared to handle protests and counter-protests simultaneously, highlighting the “32 major pro-Palestine protests and many more both pro and anti the Iranian regime” they have effectively policed, this year’s event was simply too risky due to the anticipated volume, increasing volatility in the Middle East, and the threat of terrorist attacks by agents of the Iranian regime.
“ In the last year, MI5 and Counter Terrorism Policing have foiled over 20 Iranian state-backed attacks on the UK,” police said in a statement. “Last week, counter-terrorism officers arrested four people under the National Security Act after they allegedly spied on Jewish communities for the Iranian regime and, separately, at the weekend, a man was reportedly stabbed by someone who had opposing views on the Iranian regime.”
The decision by UK authorities to ban this year’s Al-Quds march in London reflects the serious concerns surrounding an event that has long been linked to the ideological agenda of the Iranian regime and repeatedly associated with antisemitic rhetoric and extremist symbolism.
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) March 11, 2026
The… pic.twitter.com/Fgu6TqRLxi
In place of a march, organizers have said they will have a static protest, something police said “there is no law or power to ban.” They “will place strict conditions” on any such assemblies, but “accept that confrontations could still take place.”
Noah Shack, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said the events in Canada are “essentially an IRGC rally… to spread its violent ideology” and that on the heels of shootings at three Toronto synagogues, another at the city’s U.S. Consulate and more at Iranian- and Jewish-owned businesses, Canada can no longer “tolerate any further escalation of radicalization or risks to our national security.”
Canadian leaders should “denounce Al-Quds Day as a terrorist threat.”
“We urge law enforcement and governments to make use of every tool available to uphold public safety and take decisive measures to confront this growing danger: arrest and prosecute extremists inciting violence, remove Iranian regime–linked individuals from the country and prevent further infiltration, and criminalize the wilful promotion of terrorism.”
Earlier this week, Toronto councillor James Pasternak issued a statement calling for the city’s legal department “to seek an injunction to stop this hate gathering” planned to begin outside the courthouse at 361 University Avenue — directly across the street from the aforementioned U.S. consulate — at 3 p.m. on Saturday. He also urged governments and law enforcement agencies to act on infractions of the Canadian Criminal Code, the city’s hate rallies policy and bylaws.
“I know hate when I see it and the Al-Quds day march is NOT charter protected,” Pasternak wrote.
Ontario MPP Michael Kerzner also slammed the “vile and despicable” rally and said Ontario won’t stand for “antisemitism, intimidation or the glorification of terrorist groups and their violence.”
“Those who cross the line and engage in acts of hate, promote extremist ideologies, or incite violence will be held accountable and brought to justice to the fullest extent of the law,” the province’s solicitor general wrote in a statement.
London has already canceled its Al Quds day march.
— Rabbi Poupko (@RabbiPoupko) March 11, 2026
Why hasn't Canada announced a ban on this hateful genocidal march despite the shooting at the US embassy in Toronto last night??? pic.twitter.com/f9fyBr50IA
At a Sunday press conference regarding shootings at three Toronto synagogues last week, Sara Lefton of the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto also said the events should be axed.
“This is promotion of terrorism in our streets,” Lefton said. “We are calling on all of those who are speaking out today and beyond, to actually make sure that sort of thing and Al-Quds Day specifically, is shut down, and is not allowed to take place in Toronto, or anywhere in this country, because hateful words, hateful demonstrations turn into this kind of violent attack, and we need to end it now.”
Shokri was personally reticent to suggest the demonstrations in Canada should be banned, adding that cancelling one event doesn’t address the broader issue. In her view, people who come to Canada with such ideologies already ingrained need to be educated and told it won’t be tolerated here.
“Maybe we have to think about more long-term plans for this,” she said. “If you keep the doors of Canada that wide open for the people who have these types of manners and radical thinking and those regime agents coming to Canada and living here, what type of country do we expect to have in 10 years?”
Similarly reluctant to suggest the rallies be nixed was Iranian Canadian Kaveh Shahrooz, a lawyer and human rights activist and current Fellow of the McDonald Laurier Institute
As a self-described “civil libertarian,” he supports the right to peaceful protest, even those he staunchly opposes. Instead, he hopes security and intelligence services are paying attention and that the media’s portrayal is balanced and fair.
The former Global Affairs Canada senior policy advisor on human rights doesn’t see the annual event “as a neutral protest,” but as “foreign interference in Canadian affairs.”
“I think I, and a lot of other Iranian Canadians, view it as a show of force by the Islamic regime in Canada,” he told National Post in an interview.
“And I think it’s intended to send a message to the Canadian community as a whole, but particularly Iranian Canadians, about the power that Iran’s regime can exercise even outside the country.”
Any messaging about Palestine, he noted, “is almost secondary.”
Both Shahrooz and Shokri emphasized that the vast majority of Iranian Canadians, along with most of Iran’s 93 million citizens, stand in opposition to Al-Quds Day and its participants.
“I think, as you can see on your television, as you have seen in the past couple of months, Iranians, both in that country and outside of it, want democracy, they want human rights, they want equality and they denounce violence of every kind,” said Shahrooz, who left the country when he was 10.
Historically, Shokri maintains that when the marches hit the streets of Tehran, Mashhad and other cities, “the real people of Iran” are not among them because they know “government is manipulating their ideologies and their beliefs and their unity.”
Among them are her mother, sister and aunts, all Muslims who live by the teachings of Islam but now, especially after the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022, oppose “animosity between religions and communities.”
“The majority of Iranians and what they think and they want, they’re religion, the way they are keeping their relationship with their own God is not what is being propagandized by the regime or Iran lobbies here and there,” she explained.
“They are looking for a free, democratic, normal country, most importantly, in a very, very peaceful relationship and manner with everyone around the globe, including the Middle Eastern countries, including Israel and anybody else.”
National Post has contacted Toronto Police Service regarding its security plans for Saturday’s event.
The Toronto event is organized by the Al-Quds Committee in Collaboration with the Palestine Youth Movement and Lebanese4Palestine.
Montreal will see two protests — the first on Friday, 6 p.m., at Norman-Bethune Town Square near Concordia University and another starting at the Israeli Consulate on Westmount Square at 2 p.m. Saturday.
In Vancouver on Saturday, a three-hour rally and march will begin at the Olympic Cauldron at 1 p.m. The demonstration in Calgary starts at 2 p.m. outside city hall.
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