CFI Officer Bob Blackman MP has urged the UK Government to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after learning that the Iranian regime has “issued a fatwa” against British-Iranian hunger striker Vahid Beheshti.
Vahid Beheshti, who was on hunger strike for 72 days outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office before being taken to hospital, has been calling on the UK to take a more robust approach against Iran and proscribe the IRGC in its entirety.
CFI Officer Bob Blackman MP asked the Leader of the House of Commons, Rt. Hon. Penny Mordaunt MP, if the Foreign Secretary would make a statement “about measures that the Government will take to combat the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the nefarious activities that it has launched in the UK, and about the literal epidemic of executions taking place in Iran right now, involving innocent people whose only crime has been to demonstrate against the current Administration”.
The Leader of the House of Commons said she was glad that Mr Beheshti “is recovering and regaining his strength”. She acknowledged that “his protest was not just about what was happening in Iran, important though that is; it was also about the increasing intimidation of and threats to murder individuals who are in the UK”.
Following the exchange, Mr Blackman tweeted that he now understands “that the Iranian regime has issued a fatwa against Vahid Beheshti”, stating that “now is the time” for the UK to proscribe the IRGC “once and for all”.
Mr Beheshti said that he “will not be silenced”: “The IRGC’s attempts of silencing those who fight against their existence have reached a point of receiving continuous death threats and a Fatwa being issued against my life, a British citizen living in the UK”.
CFI’s Honorary President, Lord Polak CBE, and the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, visited Mr Beheshti this week in hospital. He said that he was “blessed by a visit from the chief Rabbi of Ukraine, the country that was attacked by IRGC drones. We have a common enemy and we stand strong together in this battle. I’m very happy he visited me”.
