An Iranian activist who has spent more than 730 days camped outside the Foreign Office has accused Whitehall officials of blocking efforts to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
Vahid Beheshti, 48, a journalist and human rights activist, claimed that officials within the department are preventing the government from taking action against the IRGC.
“There is an obstacle within the FCDO blocking the proscription of the IRGC, and it is the civil servants,” Beheshti told the JC from his makeshift encampment on King Charles Street.
“The so-called ‘Iran experts’ advising them are not experts – they are regime lobbyists,” he added.
His comments come amid mounting frustration among campaigners over the UK’s failure to follow the US in outlawing the IRGC. In opposition, Labour pledged to proscribe the IRGC, but in government, it has so far failed to implement the promise.
Beheshti, who was hospitalised after a 72-day long hunger strike in 2023, warned that, at the current pace, Iran’s brutal authoritarian regime may even collapse before Britain proscribes its military arm, which has been accused of numerous human rights abuses.
He spoke to the JC on the second anniversary of his “peace camp” outside the FCDO, which he began to call for the IRGC’s proscription but now says he will not leave until the Islamic Republic falls.
“Twenty-eight years ago, I was one of the lucky ones,” Beheshti said. “I escaped after being arrested twice. My life was in danger, and I knew the regime had a plan for me.”
After leaving his home country, Beheshti sought a normal life in the UK but soon turned to activism. He founded Dorr TV, a Persian news channel that now has over 700,000 members and has mobilised protesters inside Iran. But the risks are enormous.
For instance, Ruhollah Zam, a family friend of the Beheshtis and founder of AmadNews, was abducted from exile in France, forcibly returned to Iran, and executed after what Amnesty International described as an unfair trial.
“That is the price we pay for our fight,” Beheshti said.
Three years ago, he shifted his focus to pressuring the UK to ban the IRGC. “It is the main organisation that suppresses and murders people in Iran and carries out terrorist activities abroad.”
From inside his chilly tent, warmed only by a gas heater, Beheshti is surrounded by images of Iranian civilians killed by the IRGC.
As the death toll rises, more photographs are pinned to the walls. Some of the victims were said to have been raped before being murdered. Many were tortured.
One victim was just nine years old when he was shot dead. Another was 16 when she was sexually assaulted before she was killed.
In 2024 alone, at least 901 people were executed by the authorities, including around 40 in a single week in December, according to the United Nations.
“Their main goal is to protect the regime, it doesn’t matter how many people they kill,” Beheshti said.
But as the scale of the IRGC’s terror has intensified, Beheshti sees this as the final chapter in its story: “In their last days dictators become especially brutal.”
The campaigner is also urging the US and Israel to take decisive action in support of the Iranian people.
Targeted strikes on the regime’s nuclear programme, IRGC bases, and the residences of key officials could be a turning point, he argues, potentially allowing Iranians to “take to the streets and finish the job.
“You have a great military of 80 million Iranians on the ground, they are ready, they are thirsty for freedom and democracy – and they have had many uprisings, especially since 2009, but because of the level of the brutality and barbarism, they have not been successful,” he said.
“They need a little bit of support. Israel and America should give them the support they need.”
Indeed, Beheshti visited Israel last year and addressed the Knesset about the threat of the IRGC. “I asked the leaders how long we are going to engage ourselves with the tentacle of terrorism?”
He added: “Of course, we have to defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Assad in Syria – the hub of terrorism at the time – but we need to focus on the core of all of these terrorists which is the Iranian regime.”
It is this mission that informs Beheshti’s staunch support of Israel. He sees the threat posed to the Jewish state and the terror imposed on the Iranian people as two sides of the same coin.
As well as photos of the Iranian victims of the IRGC, posters of Israeli hostages bedeck the walls of the peace camp and he keeps the signs up to date with the status of each hostage.
Likewise, he visited Ukraine in 2023, recalling: “They have the same battle as us against the same common enemy – the killer Iranian drones and the existential threat of the Iranian regime allied with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
The influence of the Islamic Republic on Britain is sorely felt by Beheshti, who has been repeatedly targeted by thugs who have threatened him at the peace camp.
Shortly after October 7, a man was arrested with a machete allegedly preparing to attack Beheshti.
“I spent a week in a safe house after the regime put a fatwa on my head,” he recalled. Now, he relies on the CCTV cameras surrounding the FCDO for protection. “Under cameras, if something happens, the police are here in under a minute.”
Beheshti thinks that the end of the Islamic Republic will reveal the true extent of the ayatollahs’ network of influence in the West. In the UK, the JC has reported on numerous charitable bodies and organisations accused of working hand-in-hand with the IRGC.
“We will only understand the full influence of this regime when it falls because when the source of the funding dries up we will see the real effect of what they are doing in this country.
“People have no idea of the scale of the influence of the Iranian regime even here in London. We can see how they mobilise thousands of people on the streets of London.”
The West has only recently started to understand the level of threat posed by the ideology of the Islamic Republic, Beheshti claims. “This ideology is the same as the Muslim Brotherhood. They want to build their own world based on their principles. In order to do this, they say they must destroy the modern world and all of civilisation to build their ideal world – a caliphate.
“The elimination of the State of Israel is not their ultimate goal, it is just the first step,” he warns.
But before the regime wipes Israel off the map, he is certain that the Iranian people will overthrow their oppressors, and when the regime topples, he is optimistic about the future of the region. “Imagine what we can build – the great nation of Israel and the great nation of Iran – not only in the region, but in the world.
“If we change the region, we can change the world.”
A spokesperson for the government said: “The UK government, law enforcement and our international partners continue to work together to identify, deter and respond to threats from Iran.
“That is why we continue to take strong action to hold the Iranian regime to account – we have sanctioned more than 450 Iranian individuals and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in its entirety, as well as individual commanders.”
Source » thejc