Fears for British-Iranian hunger striker as protest reaches day 56

A dozen former cabinet ministers have signed a letter to Rishi Sunak in support of British-Iranian Vahid Beheshti who has completed 56 days of a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office in an attempt to persuade the government to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The letter, which has been signed by 125 MPs and peers from each of the main parties, was handed in by Beheshti, his wife Mattie Heaven and Conservative peer Lord Polak after Beheshti, who now uses a wheelchair, was joined by some of the parliamentarians on Wednesday.

Although there had been reports that the IRGG was to be proscribed, it is understood that the Foreign Office opposes the move.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Security Minister Tom Tugendhat are believed to be strongly in favor of adding the IRGC to the UK’s list of terrorist organisations.  Last month, Tugendhat revealed that the British police and security services Tugendhat foiled 15 IRGC assassination plots against UK citizens in the past year, and that some of their targets were prominent Jews.

“I am getting physically weaker, and I’ve lost 15 per cent of my body weight,” Beheshti told the JC during the parliamentarians’ visit. “But internally I’m getting stronger, and I am certain that proscribing the IRGC will protect our freedom here.”

“Appeasing the hostage-taking Iranian regime hasn’t worked for the past 44 years, and it won’t work now. Our government needs to learn that the only language Iran understands is pressure.”

The letter to the Prime Minister says the IRGC has been “systematically destabilising the Middle East since the Islamic Revolution, killing thousands, and expanding the Iranian regime’s malign hegemonic ambitions. This threat is no longer thousands of miles away because the IRGC is now openly operating on our own shores.

Read more on the original:

https://www.thejc.com/news/news/cross-party-support-for-british-iranian-hunger-striker-5RDYVl8WTLBDHZpQvsorAc