UK Lawmakers Pass Resolution Urging Gov’t To Proscribe IRGC
Members of the UK House of Commons on Thursday unanimously voted for a motion that urges the UK gov't to proscribe Iran's IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Members of the UK House of Commons on Thursday unanimously voted for a motion that urges the UK gov't to proscribe Iran's IRGC as a terrorist organization.
While the vote is not binding, it indicates British lawmakers' increasing pressure on the government to respond to violence against protesters in Iran by security forces mainly controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.
So far, a combination of IRGC personnel, their Basij militia, intelligence agents and regular police commanded by top IRGC generals have killed around 500 civilians and maimed hundreds of people. Four protesters have also been executed after sham trials.
Opening the discussion, Bob Blackman, a member of the ruling Conservative Party, said the IRGC should be added to the list of proscribed terrorist organizations.
"I urge UK government to proscribe IRGC as terrorist organization and work with counterparts to ensure further sanctions on Iran without delay... Suppression of speech against Iran's regime mimics the rise of the Nazis. We must act before it reaches such level."
Blackman said that the UK should “refer the [Iranian] regime’s appalling dossier of systematic violations of human rights and crimes against humanity to the United National Security Council for adoption of binding and deterrence measures.”
The IRGC should be proscribed “in its entirety,” Blackman added, echoing the words of then United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who announced the US listing of the IRGC as a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ as part of its ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions against Iran when the US in 2018 left the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
‘A bunch of clerical fascists’
John Cryer, a Labour MP, called the IRGC “a bunch of clerical fascists who rape, kill, maim their way around Iran and outside Iran's borders.” Conservative Bob Stewart said that “if any of us were to make a speech like we've made this morning or this afternoon in Iran, we’d be dead meat very quickly.”
Labour MP Fleur Anderson said the UK should offer visas to female Iranian protest leaders and those given death sentences. John McDonnell, close associate of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, called for closing the Iranian embassy and expelling Iranian diplomats.
The push in Europe to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization goes beyond the UK. Many German and Austrian politicians are keen to pursue the issue with the European Union, which will probably discuss it in a meeting next week.
Foreign Office minister Leo Docherty told MPs the IRGC was “already sanctioned as an organization,” as were some of its individual members, although it was not proscribed as a terrorist organization. Docherty said government consideration of the issue was “active” and refused to “pre-empt any formal announcement…”
A report to government from Jonathan Hall, a King’s Counsel, highlighted some of the issues involved in proscribing part of the armed forces of a sovereign state, Independent Online reported Thursday. Hall warned given the state is conventionally considered to “enjoy a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence,” this would “depart from consistent and decades-long UK policy.”
‘Upsetting the settled meaning of terrorism’
British legislation and implementation derives from the 2020 Terrorism Act, which defined terrorism as “serious violence against a person” or “serious damage to property” designed “to influence the government, or an international governmental organization or to intimidate the public” based “on a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.”
While Hall’s arguments rest on the difficulties of extending legislation based around non-state organization to state bodies, Amnesty International has long argued that the ‘terrorism’ definition is itself unworkable, and that its vagueness and breadth leave “scope for political bias in making a decision to bring a prosecution.” The UK’s current list of 78 proscribed terrorist organizations includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Listing, which is done extrajudicially by the interior minister (home secretary) makes membership, giving financial support, or displaying the group’s logo or flag a criminal offense. The MEK was removed from the list in 2008.
According to reports, some of the protesters who were injured during the regime’s crackdown refrain from going to hospitals in fear of arrest, leading to deaths in some cases.
The council of the country's student unions cited reports Tuesday that Ghazal Amiri, a student at Shiraz University, was beaten by security forces during the protests on September 10, but was not taken to hospital. The following day, her condition worsened, and she died after finally being transferred to the hospital.
There are many similar deaths that are not revealed to the media because their families are under pressure by intelligence agents. Iran International also obtained information about a young woman who fell to her death from the fourth-floor window of her home when security forces came looking for her.
In addition to over 500 protesters who have been killed during nearly four months of unrest, more than a dozen detainees have been sentenced to death. The Islamic Republic has already executed four people over their participation in demonstrations.
Security forces and the hardliner Judiciary have claimed that many of the dead protesters committed suicide or had medical preconditions.
Meanwhile, there are several reports about the deteriorating health conditions of the detained protesters. According to reports obtained by Iran International, the teeth of Saleh Mirhashmi, a protester sentenced to death, were broken and his eardrum was also ruptured under torture in prison. Mirhashmi has recently married, and his mother is under immense psychological pressure due to her son's condition.
The number of protesters who are given death sentences in the regime’s courts is also increasing. Ebrahim Naroui, who was arrested during protests in the southeastern city of Zahedan, was sentenced to death by the Sixth Branch of the Revolutionary Court of the city on the charge of "Moharebeh". Three more Iranians arrested during antigovernment protests in the northern city of Nowshahr were sentenced to death on Tuesday. Iran's judiciary said Monday that a court has sentenced three more protesters to death for “war against God”.
Political activist Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, who already served several years in the regime’s prisons, was also sentenced to “corruption on earth,” a sentence punishable by death. He was arrested on September 20.
The judiciary’s branch in Kordestan province also announced Tuesday that Pouria Javaheri is also facing a death sentence for “Moharebeh.” He was arrested in the city of Kamyaran during protests late in November.
“Moharebeh” and "corruption on earth" are vague Islamic-Arabic Sharia concepts that in the lexicon of the Iranian regime means a death sentence. The Islamic Republic considers many acts of opposition or defiance against the regime as “Moharebeh” and "corruption on earth", with the maximum punishment of death.
Clerical judges who take orders from the hardliner Judiciary convict people to death without a real trial, often with no defense lawyers and behind closed doors. The defendants have no way of challenging state evidence or introducing witnesses.
According to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization, at least 109 Iranian protesters are currently at risk of execution or facing death sentences, but the number seems to be much higher with new cases revealed almost every day. The rights organization also stressed that repression through arbitrary arrests, physical torture, sexual assault and rape in detention and the mass issuance of sentences has been intensified.
The push is mainly because of IRGC's role in using violence and lethal force to suppress protesters since September. Security forces mostly under its command have killed around 500 people during demonstrations and after arrest.
Anne-Claire Lengendre, the French Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said Tuesday that Paris was “working with its European partners on new sanctions measures, without excluding any.”
"Listing the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is politically important and makes sense," she said on Twitter, adding that legal hurdles still needed to cleared before it could be done.
But while France has been skeptical over the benefits of sanctioning a large part of a sovereign state’s armed forces, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted Monday that “listing the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is politically important and makes sense.” Baerbock added that legal issues were being explored.
It has been widely reported that the United Kingdom is preparing to list the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly saying on at least two occasions that it had already sanctioned the corps “in its entirety.”
‘Acts of terror’
Designating the IRGC would mean any member’s assets could be seized, and that belonging to the group, attending its meetings, or even displaying its logo would be a criminal act. The EU and UK have both since October sanctioned individual IRGC commanders.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Monday that those accusing the IRGC of ‘terrorism’ had themselves “committed acts of terror and are accused of sponsoring it.” The spokesman cited the US drone strike in 2020 that killed IRGC general Qassem Soleimani, which the United Nations special rapporteur judged ‘unlawful killing.’
Soleimani was in charge of organizing militant groups in the region that attacked US and allied targets.
The United States designated the IRGC in 2019 as part of ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions against Iran launched as Washington withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
During great power talks in Vienna, which paused late summer, aimed at restoring the JCPOA, it was reported that Iran wanted the IRGC, or at least its construction and business operations, delisted. The US reportedly refused.
‘Maximum pressure’ was designed, according to Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State 2018-21, to force Iran to concede 12 demands including ending all uranium enrichment, scrapping missile defense, and breaking links with regional allies. The EU describes the aim of its sanctions more vaguely as a “change in policy or conduct.”
‘Reinforce the message’
In the right-wing Daily Telegraph January 5, veteran columnist Con Coughlan wrote that listing the IRGC would “help to reinforce the message to Iran that the West is no longer prepared to turn a blind eye to its nefarious activities.”
Supporters of listing have compared the IRGC, which includes many thousands of Iranians on ‘flag service,’ to virulently anti-Shia Sunni extremists. Kasra Aarabi, of the Tony Blair Institute, said in December that the IRGC was “no different from the likes of Isis [Daesh, the Islamic State group] or al-Qaeda.”
Others are less convinced. An editorial in the London Observer January 8 suggested killing Soleimani had fueled an “evolving, many-fronted threat to western security interests.” It pointed out that the US leaving the JCPOA, and Israel killing Iranian scientists, had just brought closer a “nuclear-armed Iran.”
Iranian officials have highlighted some US and European politicians, including Pompeo, supporting the Mujahideen-e Khalq, a militant Iranian opposition group that helped Saddam Hussein suppress the 1991 Iraqi uprising. The MEK was ‘delisted’ by EU in 2009 and by the US in 2012.