Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has confirmed that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been sanctioned by the United Kingdom “in its entirety”, as calls grow for the group to be proscribed as a terrorist group.
The IRGC is a branch of the Iranian army that is close to the regime and has been accused of carrying out attacks on Jews around the world. It is designated as a terror group by the US, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Mr Cleverly confirmed the sanction on Twitter on Tuesday in response to a question about what the government is “doing about the Iranian regime”.
Stressing that the UK was working on closing the controversial nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Mr Cleverly said: “We have sanctioned the IRGC in its entirety”.
In addition to the IRGC, he said the UK had sanctioned “the morality police and the judges who have been persecuting the protesters in Iran.”
Earlier this month in Parliament, Mr Cleverly claimed the UK was taking strong action against the government of Iran and against the IRGC. He said on December 13: “These protests in Iran are a watershed moment. After years of repression, the Iranian people have clearly had enough.
"They are standing up to the authoritarian regime under which they live. Sadly, the regime has responded in the only way it knows: with violence.
“The UK is committed to holding Iran to account, including with more than 300 sanctions — including the sanctioning of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety. We will continue to work with partners to challenge the regime’s aggression at home and its disruptive behaviour in the region.”
Calls to label the IRGC a terror group has been increasing, with some holding the opinion that sanctions don’t go far enough.
Kasra Aarabi, the Iran Program Lead at the Tony Blair Institute, in an appearance on CBS News, said: “The IRGC is no different from the likes of ISIS or Al-Qaeda. It operates in no different way. It uses indoctrination to radicalise its recruits in a hardline ideology that calls for not only killing Iranians who are opposed to the regime but torturing them before their death,”
Mr Aarabi lists the modus operandi of the group as “terrorism, hostage taking, hijackings.
“The guards have for more than 43 years been exporting terrorism not only in the Middle East but across the West in Europe and in America,” Mr Aarabi said.
The UK sanctioned ten Iranian officials connected to Iran’s judicial and prison systems earlier this month, as part of Western efforts to punish the Iranian regime for its ongoing suppression of protesters.
The United States has proscribed the IRGC since 2019 as part of its list of “foreign terrorist organisations”. Last month, prosecutors in Germany accused the IRGC of organising a string of attempted terror attacks against Jews in synagogues.
