Government urged to ban Iranian revolutionary guard amid violent crackdown

A group of Anglo-Iranian women has called on the Government to ban the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as the Tehran regime’s violent crackdown on protests continues.

Demonstrators gathered outside Downing Street in central London, where they demanded the IRGC be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

The special armed forces organisation has already been heavily sanctioned in recent years, but there are growing calls for the Prime Minister to go further.

Dozens of people have been killed and thousands detained as the Iranian state has attempted to quell the mass protests in Tehran and other cities using the organisation.

Laila Jazayeri, director of the Association of Anglo-Iranian Women in the UK, said the IRGC had already gone too far.

Speaking at the demonstration on Sunday, she told the Press Association: “The Prime Minister should prescribe the deadly force IRGC, that is killing people inside Iran.”

She said: “There is no need for military intervention. There is no need for boots on the ground.

“Iranian people are capable of bringing the regime down.

“The protesters are empty-handed. They are dealing with heavily armed security forces in some towns and cities.

“But the regime hasn’t been able to send the protesters back home. Why? Because there is a network of resistance.”

Most information coming out of the country is through Starlink satellite transmitters after the regime restricted internet access, and Ms Jazayeri said the UK Government could do more to get Iranians back online.

“The regime has shut down the internet to kill in silence. (The UK Government) should help get access to internet for the Iranian people,” she said.

Asked about the possibility of banning the organisation, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told Sky News: “It’s a very thorough process that the Home Secretary would go through in determining whether to proscribe an organisation… I’m not going to second-guess the decisions of the Home Secretary on a matter as significant as this.

“She will follow due process and won’t leave any stone unturned in looking at all the information that is available to her.

“As a government, we keep those decisions about the proscription of organisations under constant review and I have no doubt that Shabana Mahmood is doing that at the moment.”

Later on Sunday, a separate group of around 1,000 protesters gathered on Whitehall calling for “Iranian freedom” before marching to the Iranian embassy.

Social media footage appeared to show a man tearing down the flag from the embassy’s balcony – the second time protesters have removed it in the space of two days.

Scotland Yard said two arrests had been made over Saturday’s incident, one for aggravated trespass and assault on an emergency worker and one for aggravated trespass.