Iran

As ordinary Iranians struggle to pay for fruit and vegetables, their leaders lavish cash on the guards brutally suppressing protests in the streets

Iran’s feared state security forces, which have played a violent role in suppressing nationwide protests, have been allocated $3 billion in the latest budget, despite the country’s collapsing economy.

Announced several weeks late by the government, the budget for the state militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been raised by 28 per cent. However, some experts estimate the actual income of the militia could be as high as $17 billion.

On January 16 the European Parliament will debate adding the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to the European Union’s terrorist list. Proscribing the IRGC as a terror organization by the European countries represents a robust political stance, serving multiple purposes: protecting human rights in Iran, preventing further terror attacks in Europe, and punishing the Revolutionary Guards for arming Russia and participation in war in Ukraine.

The IRGC is the premier and the largest terrorist organization in the world, created on May 5, 1979, by order of Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Revolution. It was formed primarily for two specific goals: defending the regime and exporting the Islamic revolution to neighboring countries through terrorism. Over time, the IRGC, aided by its proxies, carried out dozens of terror attacks around the world against American and Israeli targets and took effective control of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

While the Iranian regime has become more belligerent, the European Union and the Biden administration are still attempting to restore the nuclear deal that will lift economic sanctions on Iran, empower and embolden the regime, enhance its global legitimacy and pave the way for what the US State Department has called the “world’s worst sponsor of state terrorism” to legally become a nuclear-armed state.

Iran hanged two men tied to anti-government protests on Saturday, continuing a trend of using capital punishment to suppress dissent. The government has also killed hundreds of people, held thousands of sham trials and sentenced more people to death row, according to rights groups.

Iran has reportedly sentenced two teenagers to death for “corruption on Earth” and “waging war against God” among other charges often used by the judiciary to help the government quell nationwide unrest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody.

The U.S.-based activist group HRANA quoted an informed source on January 4 as saying that the Revolutionary Court in the northern city of Sari handed down a death penalty to 18-year-old Arshia Takdastan, basing its verdict on an accusation that he threw a drinking bottle and a stone at a police car during a protest in the city of Nowshahr in September.

From Charlie Hebdo

Masih Alinejad: hiding from Iran’s assassins in FBI safe houses

The apartment is almost empty now. Just half a box of Cheerios, a bin bag of rubbish and a few pot plants remain. Masih Alinejad sits in this impersonal room with her laptop balanced on an upturned saucepan, puts on her jacket and goes live on CNN. After finishing her segment, rebutting reports the Iranian government has dismantled its infamous religious police – “Disinformation to break the resolve of demonstrators” – she turns to her husband, Kambiz Foroohar. They must leave in an hour, he says.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is set to be officially declared a terrorist group after 10 plots to kidnap or murder people in the UK last year, The Telegraph can reveal.

Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, and Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, both support the move, which is expected to be announced within weeks.

Officials have been building the case against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with the security services understood to have shared intelligence.