ICBPS- The MPs called for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terrorist organization due to its “clear and enduring support for terrorists and non-state actors working to undermine stability in the region”.
The MPs say the U.K. should do more to constrain Tehran by proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and formally describe the Ayatollahs’ practice of detaining British dual nationals as state hostage-taking.
“The U.K. government must call the arbitrary detention of foreign nationals what it is: hostage-taking,” said Tom Tugendhat, the select committee chair. “The charges, trials, and convictions of British citizens on Iranian soil are a parody of a justice system. Using young mothers and retirees as bargaining chips and leverage is an unacceptable form of diplomacy.”
According to the reports, the MPs also propose the disintegrating Iran nuclear deal is renegotiated to include binding commitments to constrain its ballistic missile programme.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is one of those dual nationals who was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016 and accused by Tehran of working with organizations allegedly attempting to overthrow the regime.
The IRGC targets foreigners for imprisonment to pressure the international community to comply with the regime’s blackmail demands. Dozens of foreigners and dual national citizens are being jailed for years, to be exchanged in thinly-veiled hostage deals, such as the one in which the Hussein Obama administration paid the regime a rich ransom to free some United States citizens.
In early September, the ICBPS reported that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s malicious behavior has forced Britain to pay a ransom of £400 million tank order marks “for its citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is jailed in Iran.”
The U.K. has sought to pay a debt to the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) that could finally help secure British dual nationals’ release, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, according to the Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.
The U.K. is thought to owe as much as £400 million to the IRI arising from the non-delivery of Chieftain tanks ordered by the Shah of Iran before the Islamic Revolutionaries took power in 1979.
The ICBPS team gathered the report. The Institute of Capacity Building for Political Studies (ICBPS) is a non-governmental research institute focusing on political studies, international security, and international relations.
