After Mass Demonstrations.. New European Moves to Punish Iran’s Revolutionary Guard
Thousands of Iranian diaspora members from all over Europe demonstrated on Monday evening in the French city of Strasbourg, which is hosting the European Parliament summit, to urge the bloc to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, an Agence France Presse reporter said.
The demonstrators raised banners condemning the Revolutionary Guard’s crimes and repression of peaceful popular protests, such as, “Basij and Revolutionary Guard… you are Daesh.”
Pressure is growing between exiled opponents and activists for the European Union and the United Kingdom to follow the United States and blacklist the IRGC over the crackdown on four months of protests since the killing of a security engineer in September.
“About 12,000 people took part in the demonstration in the eastern French city, with a mass march towards parliament holding a monthly plenary session”, said the French police.
European support for the Iranian people
“We are coming together to make the voice of Iranians, women and men heard in Europe and ask the European Parliament to continue to stand on the right side of history,” said centrist Swedish MP Alireza Akhondi, who organized the march.
“Without Europe’s help and without their voice, there will be no revolution in Iran.”
Activists accuse the Revolutionary Guard of playing a key role in quelling the protests, which have left hundreds dead according to rights groups. Four protesters have already been executed.
The IRGC, a branch of Iran’s armed forces, is particularly tasked with protecting Iran’s Islamic regime, established after the shah’s fall in 1979, from external and internal threats.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola vowed to protesters that the EU stands with protesters in Iran.
“We will push the international community to respond strongly to the terror the regime has unleashed on the people of Iran,” she said. There has to be a strong global response.”
Sahar Aghani, 26, a French-Iranian student, said the EU blacklisting of the IRGC “will change things considerably, economically and geopolitically”.
IRGC Designated Terrorist Organization
The U.S. designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist group in 2019 under President Donald Trump.
British press reports suggested that London was considering a similar move, while there were also indications that the EU was considering such a move.
Activists believe the EU designation will have a far greater impact than the current sanctions on officials and the occasional recall of ambassadors, which has characterized Europe’s response so far.
“We are also studying how we can classify the IRGC as a terrorist organization,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in October.
Iranian protests in Sydney
Separately, dozens of Iranians in the Australian city of Sydney staged demonstrations in front of the state parliament, raising the slogan, “The IRGC is a terrorist.”
Earlier, 117 members of the European Parliament had called for the Revolutionary Guard to be added to the list of terrorist organizations.
In a statement carried by AFP, they called on the European Parliament to designate the IRGC as a “terrorist”, in response to Iran’s “repression” of demonstrations sweeping several Iranian cities, targeting women in particular.
