The Iranian Canadian Congress condemns the escalating campaign of targeted harassment, doxing, and professional sabotage directed at Iranian Canadian faculty, researchers, professionals, business owners, and sometimes ordinary people irrespective of profession. Over the past weeks, Iranian individuals who do not publicly align with specific political movements, such as calling for the restoration of the Iranian monarchy, have been targeted for professional and personal ruin, often in repeated cycles. 
 
We have received multiple reports from individuals being doxed and harassed, regardless of their digital footprint. Professionals are being singled out for the mere act of wearing hijab, or for publishing articles and research that cite Iranian, or even Israeli sources that challenge the pro-war narrative. Iranian-owned shops and other businesses are being targeted and threatened with loss of business if they do not display the Iranian monarchist flag. 
 
This is a coordinated effort to create a climate of fear to ensure that Iranian voices, particularly those who advocate for peace or oppose war, are silenced through organized reputational threats and character assassination. 
 
As a grassroots organization, we are doing everything within our means to manage this surge and provide support to those targeted. We urge employers, university chairs, professional associations, and business associations to recognize these influxes of complaints for what they are: a targeted campaign to suppress dissent and intimidate professionals. 
 
To Our Institutional Partners: 
We remain a dedicated resource for the broader community. We invite HR departments, university leadership, and organizational heads to reach out to us directly if you require context or information regarding the safety and well-being of your Iranian staff or colleagues who may be facing these pressures. 

To Our Community:  
We are actively working on programming to address fears and concerns and provide resources to help manage the backlash. We will update members about such programming via our social media channels. Our mental health series on Instagram remains a timely source of tools in the form of expert psychological advice. We also encourage individuals to document any attacks against them and pursue law enforcement and legal channels if relevant. At this moment we also point to the following resources regarding the prevention and management of internet-based attacks:  

https://www.iccongress.ca/educational_tools_against_online_harassment_cyberbullying (past post containing links to multiple resources)  

https://www.equalitylabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/EQUALITY-LABS-ANTI-DOXING-GUIDE-FOR-ACTIVISTS-3.0.pdf 
(additional resource) 

Since 2008, the Iranian Canadian Congress (ICC) has worked tirelessly with the interests of the Iranian Canadian community in mind, and with the core values of peace, solidarity, freedom, justice and transparency. It is unfortunate that the ICC and its board members have frequently been the target of cyberbullying by individuals who oppose our core values, who choose aggression over peace, bullying over freedom of speech, and trolling while cowardly hiding behind their -sometimes unknown- online identity. 

The ICC board members, and the members of the public alike, have been targeted by such bullies on many social media platforms, who aim to create a toxic atmosphere or hoping to interfere with or to discourage the board members from their peaceful activities. 

The ICC board members are and have been aware and prepared to face the trolls and the toxic environment that they wish to create, finding encouragement instead of being discouraged, and determination instead of distraction. After all, the harder the trolls try, the more we have reason to believe in the positive impacts of ICC’s overall strategies, giving us more reason and determination to continue working toward our peaceful ambitions. 

Despite the above, we condemn the acts of cyberbullying, and encourage our members and the public to stay sensitive about such activities. Cyberbullying, especially when it involves physical threats, is a criminal activity and the ICC will assess such activities going forward and may choose to report them to the respective social media platform, or in more serious cases to the police. For further information about cyberbullying please consult the following resources. 

https://www.unicef.org/end-violence/how-to-stop-cyberbullying 

https://ssd.eff.org/module/your-security-plan 

https://womensmediacenter.com/speech-project/tools-resources 

https://www.datasociety.net/pubs/oh/Online_Harassment_2016.pdf 

http://cdeacf.ca/boite-outils-cyberintimidation 

https://onlineharassmentfieldmanual.pen.org/protecting-information-from-doxing/