UK Slaps Sanctions On IRGC Commanders Over Human Rights Violations
Britain has announced further sanctions on Islamic Republic officials, including commanders of the IRGC,for their role in the regime’s bloodshed at home and abroad.
Britain has announced further sanctions on Islamic Republic officials, including commanders of the IRGC,for their role in the regime’s bloodshed at home and abroad.
Britain has announced further sanctions on Islamic Republic officials, including commanders of the IRGC, for their role in the regime’s bloodshed at home and abroad.
Announcing the sanctions on Monday in coordination with the United States and the European Union, the British government said those sanctioned included four regional commanders of the Revolutionary Guards.
“The Iranian regime is responsible for the brutal repression of the Iranian people and for exporting bloodshed around the world. That’s why we have more than 300 sanctions in place on Iran, including on the IRGC in its entirety,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
Despite his claim about sanctions on the entire IRGC, the British government has so far failed to proscribe the outfit as a terrorist organization despite several rounds of rallies by the Iranian diaspora as well as calls by activists.
Dual British-Iranian citizen Vahid Beheshti is on his 61st day of hunger strike outside the UK Foreign Office, calling on the UK government to designate the IRGC, a terror group responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Iranian citizens since September 2022, when Iranians revolted against the regime after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. His campaign has proven so successful that his name has been frequently mentioned during the sessions of the UK House of Commons, but London has not officially blacklisted the IRGC.
“The UK and our international partners are again making clear today that we will not overlook the regime’s brutal oppression. We will continue to take a range of actions to hold the regime to account for its actions,” Cleverly added.
The UK’s current list of 78 proscribed terrorist organizations includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) but not the IRGC. The Revolutionary Guard is the Islamic Republic’s leading military, intelligence and internal security juggernaut, responsible for cracking down on dissent inside Iran and managing the proxy militias throughout the region including the Houthis in Yemen which have caused devastation to the country.
Several countries including the US, UK and EU have been cautious to designate the IRGC for fear it will further alienate the regime and in turn, limit negotiating capacity regarding its nuclear program.
In December, members of the UK House of Commons unanimously voted for a motion that urges the government to proscribe the IRGC, but it has split the House.
According to the British government, the US and EU are also set to announce further sanctions on Iranian regime officials responsible for human rights violations, but two of the newly sanctioned IRGC commanders are already blacklistedby the US and the EU as well as Canada and Australia, and the other two already sanctioned by the EU.
“The latest UK sanctions are against four IRGC Commanders, under whose leadership IRGC forces have opened fire on unarmed protestors resulting in numerous deaths, including of children, and have arbitrarily detained and tortured protestors,” added the Monday statement.
Mohammad Nazar Azimi is the Commander of Najaf Ashraf West Headquarters, and according to the British government responsible for the violent repression of protests in the Kurdish-majority Kermanshah Province, with IRGC forces using machine guns against unarmed protestors resulting in multiple deaths.
The other blacklisted IRGC commander is Habib Shahsavari, who leads the Shohada ground troops of the West Azarbaijan province, andis responsible for repression of protestors in Mahabad and Piranshahr, where the regime’s crackdown resulted in multiple deaths.
Mohsen Karimi – the IRGC commander of Markazi province – and Ahmad Kadem (Khadem) – the commander of the Operational Base Karbala, which commands IRGC troops in the provinces of Khuzestan, Lorestan and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, are the other two guards sanctioned for their role in the repression of protests.
Karimi was announced as responsible for the violent repression of protests, including 19-year-old protestor Mehrshad Shahidi who was reportedly beaten to death in an IRGC detention center. And Khadem was responsible for the repression of protests in the town of Izeh, in Khuzestan Province, during which 10-year old Kian Pirfalak was shot and killed.
Gen. Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, speaking Sunday to Fars news agency controlled by the IRGC, made the anti-Semitic remark amid a torrent of daily attacks by Islamic Republic officials against Israel.
The renewed rhetoric began just a few weeks after Iran concluded an agreement with Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic relations and according to Israeli officials, instigated attacks by Palestinians in early April.
Naghdi, who is a deputy to IRGC's chief commander, went on to say that while Satan guides the Zionists, Iran’s regime “is led by saints” and its mission is to inspire light in the hearts of men. “Some have been awakened” and even voluntarily provide top-secret information to the Islamic Republic.
“Sometimes they are shocked how the Iranians found a particular secret,” he said. “They search and search again for a spy and cannot find one, unbeknownst to them that many of their personnel are cooperating out of conviction.”
Naghdi, like many other IRGC officers, is adept at propaganda, having been raised in a religious milieu where fantastic stories are told and told again to build faith in the Shiite ideology. However, faced with multiple crises regime officials seem to have resorted more intensely to twisting reality to justify their policies or deflect criticism.
Recently, a leaked audio recording showed how an intelligence official used bizarre and conspiratorial statements in a speech to try to explain away multiple problems the regime faces.
In fact, since July 2020, evidence has piled up that Israel has deeply penetrated Iran’s security barriers and has succeeded in major sabotage operations against nuclear and military targets. The regime in Tehran and particularly the IRGC have lost face after telling the people for four decades that they are very strong in security and military spheres.
Their myth shattered, their failures in the economic sphere now loom even larger. The economy is in tatters and tens of millions of Iranians have sunk into poverty. Last year, the regime faced the most intense protests in its four-decade history, and large-scale unrest can resume at any moment.
Naghdi claimed that last year 10,000 attacks took place against Israel, taking credit for standing behind what the regime calls “the resistance front.”
“This is the revenge of the Islamic Revolution; the destruction of the Zionist regime,” he said.
Naghdi also echoed statements by other senior officials in the past few days that Israel’s power of deterrence has been broken and not only it is unable to intimidate Iran, but also it can no longer deter the Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.
He also claimed that the Islamic Republic has almost driven out the United States from the region, highlighting the US defeat in Afghanistan and the hasty withdrawal.
“They escaped from Afghanistan and most of them also escaped from Iraq and the rest will also leave. They have been defeated, and this trend will continue,” Naghdi claimed. He also mocked the US and Britain for not being able to do anything when their servicemen were detained by the Revolutionary Guard, in 2016 and 2007 respectively.
Claiming that people throughout the world follow the ideology of Iran’s regime, Naghdi asked, “In which era in history we, or any other country, had such an influence? I have estimated that daily 100,000 experts wake up, go to work, get paid in different countries just to overthrow the Islamic Republic regime…”
At the same time, Israeli officials are visibly angry at what they insist is Iranian orchestrated multi-front attacks, from Gaza, Lebanon and even Syria.
On April 15, the Spectator wrote about "The dangerous shadow war between Iran and Israel" and quoted regional affairs analyst Kim Ghattas as saying in her new book, The Black Wave, that the recent "Saudi-Iran peace deal might be based on the KSA's judgment that Israel will attack Iran sooner or later."
The Spectator, said Iran is likely to continue to use its proxy groups in the region against Israel and further quoted Ghattas as saying, "There is no change to Iran’s foreign policy, except for some cosmetic changes to allow the supreme leader some space and time to figure out how they’re going to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic."
A Foreign Affairs report in February pointed out that "Israel has long made clear its penchant for applying military pressure to disrupt Iran’s nuclear advances and weapons exports—and, more recently, its drone technology program."
The publication added that "In the last few months, however, Israel’s appetite for risk seems to have increased." Israel's past weeks' attacks on Iranian targets in Syria seems to have proven the Foreign Affairs' argument.
And last but not least, the Times of Israel quoted former Israeli National Security Adviser Yaacov Amidror as saying that "Israel must prepare for war with Iran without US help."The Times of Israel further quoted Amidror as saying that “We need to prepare for war. It’s possible that we will reach a point where we have to attack Iran even without American assistance.”
In Iran, in a message to his counterparts in Muslim countries, the Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on Friday, "The Islamic ummah [nation] can see the destruction of Israel thanks to their profound unity." In the message that was carried by IRGC-linked Fars News Agency, Ghalibaf reiterated that the liberation of Quds [Jerusalem] is one of the highest ideals of Muslims.
Meanwhile, the Friday Prayers Imam of Kangan, in southern Iran, Mahmoud Mahmoudi spoke about the recent visit to Israel by Prince Reza Pahlavi, the former Crown Prince of Iran, and said "The Iranian nation will send their message to Israel with the Resistance's missile, not by Reza Pahlavi."
The cleric was referring to Prince Reza's statement in which he said that his visit was aimed at carrying Iranian nation’s message to the people of Israel. Reports on social media and foreign-based Persian television channels indicate that the prince's visit to Israel was welcomed by Israeli officials and Iranian expats in Israel.
Mahmoudi referring to Iran's proxy groups in the region including the Lebanese Hizballah, claimed that "the resistance forces have opened the doors of hell to the Zionists who are now encircled by the resistance."
Earlier, on Thursday, the Friday Imam of Mashhad, firebrand cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda referred to possible Israeli attacks on Iran and threatened that, "If there is going to be any stupidity and aggression, all of the US bases in the region will be destroyed in the region."
In another development on the same day which marked the Army Day in Iran, President Ebrahim Raisi who reviewed the troop on the occasion, threatened Israel while watching obsolete US warplanes produced in the 1960s and 70s fly over the area by saying that "The smallest error by Israel, will lead to the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv."
