UK set to proscribe Iran’s IRGC as terrorist group

According to reports, Tom Tugendhat, the UK Security Minister, and Suella Braverman, the UK’s Home Secretary, are in favour of officially classifying Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

It is believed that the declaration will be officially announced in the upcoming weeks according to The Daily Telegraph. This is due to British government representatives forming a case against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and intelligence sectors exchanging information.

If the IRGC is officially deemed to be a terrorist group, it will be unlawful to take part in its meetings, show its logo in public or promote its operations.

The British government views the Corps as a severe danger to the UK, as the classification would equate them with Al Qaeda and ISIS.

This decision would follow similar steps by the US and Canada, which are both members of the Five Eyes alliance that also incorporates Australia and New Zealand. In May 2022, US President Joe Biden finalized his decision to keep Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on a terrorist blacklist. In November 2022 a judge in Canada ruled that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is a “terrorist entity” under Canadian law.

Taking action against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could make it difficult to reach an agreement on a new nuclear agreement with Iran to restrain its nuclear weapon development, and reflects a more stringent policy from the UK towards Iran.

The mass protests in Iran have been ongoing for three months since Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody in September. The police for morality arrested her for breaking the country’s dress code.

 

Image Credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP