The European Parliament on Thursday called for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be put on the EU’s terrorist list, saying sanctions targeting Tehran should be expanded after the violent suppression of protests.
In a nonbinding resolution, the legislature mustered a large majority to call on the EU’s 27 member states for such punitive action to counter what it sees as a swift backsliding of human rights in Iran.
Beyond the call to put the organization on its terrorist blacklist, the parliament also wants the EU to ban any economic or financial activity that can linked to the Revolutionary Guard.
Photo: Reuters
The US has already designated the corps as a “foreign terrorist organization,” and subjected it to unprecedented sanctions.
In Tehran, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called the vote “against international law and the charter of the United Nations,” local media reported.
The official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Raisi as saying the vote was “a desperate move.”
The Revolutionary Guard is an official body and part of Iran’s military, Raisi was quoted as saying.
The European Parliament action came before Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers at which more sanctions against Tehran are expected to be approved.
The resolution came after four months of protests against the Iranian government sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was being held by morality police for allegedly contravening the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
The protests quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of the theocracy and mark one of the biggest challenges it has faced in more than four decades.
Iran has blamed the unrest on the US and other foreign powers, without providing evidence.
The protesters say they are fed up with social and political repression, corruption and an economy weighed down by Western sanctions and mismanagement.
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