Pressure mounts on the West to 'end the tyranny' in Iran and proscribe IRGC as terrorists

The West must rally behind the Iranian people and proscribe the IRGC as terrorists, campaigners have demanded.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to descend on Berlin, Germany, on Saturday to demand regime change in Tehran.

And key to this, campaigners say, is blacklisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp to prevent them from supressing opposing voices in Iran and promoting terrorism around the World.

The IRGC has been accused of attempting assassinations on British soil, funding, arming and training terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and supporting the Houthis’ Red Sea piracy campaign.

Iran is holding Presidential elections on Friday after Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash last month, with conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, and the sole reformist, Massoud Pezeshkian, the frontrunners.

But demonstrations will be held to reject the “mullahs’ sham presidential election” in Berlin on Saturday.

Shahin Gobadi, press spokesman of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told the Daily Express: “This rally will show that there is a growing consensus in the West that it should be on the side of the people of Iran.

“The people in Iran will see that there is a growing voice for Europe to be supportive of them and their desire for regime change and proscription of the IRGC.

“The IRGC is responsible for tyranny and oppression both at home and abroad.

“It is not time for a sham election. It is time for a revolution. It is time for regime change."

Organisers say the protesters will demand that “our vote is to overthrow the clerical regime and establish a democratic republic based on the separation of religion and state.”

Among those set to speak is Professor Alejo Vidal Quadras, who survived an assassination attempt believed to have been ordered by the IRGC.

Professor Vidal-Quadras describes himself as “lucky” after surviving an assassination attempt on 9 November last year which saw a bullet miss his jugular and pass through his jaw.

Prof Vidal-Quadras is the first European politician to be targeted in Europe.

Vidal-Quadras has previously accused the Iranian regime of being behind the assassination attempt. In October 2022, Vidal-Quadras was included in an Iranian sanctions list in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed on the country after the death in custody of a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini.

More than 550 MPs and Peers have backed calls to proscribe the IRGC and “send a clear message” to Tehran that “business as usual is over”.

Campaigners warn the IRGC “through proxy groups… spreads terrorism and obstructs regional and global peace and security.”

The IRGC was linked to a plot to assassinate two TV presenters outside their studio in London.

Iranian spies offered a people smuggler $200,000 to murder two Iran International hosts, Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet, because they were allegedly causing “a lot of humiliation in the media”.

They were given codenames of the “bride and groom”, it is understood.

Mohammed Reza Ansari, a commander from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was behind the plot.