The European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Thursday 19 January 2023, calling on the EU and member states to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is a significant step toward acknowledging the Islamic regime as a state sponsoring terrorism and its IRGC as a terrorist organisation. Although this action has been long overdue, the current situation in Iran and while people in Iran are in the process of a revolution and overthrowing the Islamic regime would put even more pressure on the regime.
The regime’s IRGC has been brutally suppressing, torturing, and killing Iranians since it was established in 1979 by Khomeini. Moreover, the IRGC controls the assets, trades, and investments and owns a very high percentage of financial resources and companies in Iran. Outside Iran, the IRGC owns many companies and investments. The IRGC uses the profits from its investments to sponsor its terrorist activities in Iran and other countries such as Iraq, Syria, the UK, the US, and European countries. They also used their financial means to establish and are continuously funding terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah.
The IRGC is responsible for the forced disappearance, torture, imprisonment, rape, and execution of hundreds of thousands of people in Iran in the last 44 years. The IRGC has been involved and had its hands in every violence and crime committed against people in Iran, whether it happens in prisons or across Iran, in cities and villages. Additionally, kidnapping, assassinations, and spying on dissidents abroad, have been directly planned and systematically implemented by the IRGC and its different militant branches. The IRGC is responsible for kidnapping and imprisoning tens of dual nationals. One such example is Rouhollah Zam, a French resident who was kidnapped by the IRGC when he visited Iraq. He
was then taken to Iran and imprisoned, tortured, and sentenced to death by hanging which was carried out on 12 December 2020. Another example is Jamshid Sharmahd who was kidnapped by the IRGC from Dubai in 2020. He is now in prison facing execution.
In the recent protests in Iran, which started when MahsaAmini was murdered by the Morality Police (part of IRGC) on 16 September 2022, tens of thousands of people, including many children, have been abducted and hundreds were killed by the IRGC, and its branches such as Basij militia and plainclothes guards.
CFPPI has received many reports of detained demonstrators being tortured, raped, forced to confess under torture, and also dying under torture. Families of detainees are threatened by the IRGC every day to stop them from publicising the situation of their abducted children.
Placing the IRGC on the list of terrorist organisations is an effective step in supporting people in Iran and pressuring the Islamic regime to release political prisoners and stop execution in Iran.
CFPPI urges the European Union and the member states to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. Failing to do this will only result in enabling, empowering, and emboldening the regime and its IRGC to commit further crimes against humanity in Iran, in the Middle East, and internationally.
Shiva Mahbobi
Spokeswoman, Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
www.cfppi.org shiva.mahbobi@gmail.com Tel: +447572356661
