Vahid Beheshti finds it troublesome to face.
The 46-year-old additionally finds it troublesome to take a seat.
He now spends most of his time mendacity on a mattress inside a flimsy tent and he informed me that he tends to flip out and in of consciousness.
This British-Iranian is on the thirtieth day of a starvation strike which he’s staging in entrance of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development workplace in London.
He desires the UK authorities to designate Iran’s infamous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (or IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, thereby inserting them in the identical class as teams like Islamic State, al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
“I am getting weaker physically but internally I am getting stronger and I am determined to achieve this great goal,” he informed Sky News because the rain drenched his ad-hoc campsite.
The “Revolutionary Guards” are a state-backed army operation, designed and deployed to guard Iran’s clerical regime. They run intensive operations at house – their volunteer “Basij” militia have been utilizing brutal strategies in an try and crush a well-liked revolt in Iran.
Overseas, their brokers intimidate and threaten those that criticise the regime.
In London, they have been accused of focusing on journalists on the tv station “Iran International”, based mostly within the district of Chiswick in London. After an escalation of these threats, the station moved its headquarters to Washington DC in February.
“We see the hands of IRGC operating in London when the Met Police asked (television station) Iran International to relocate from London to (Washington) DC because of these threats. That means all of us are not safe because of the IRGC.”
Mr Beheshti says his marketing campaign is supported by the vast majority of MPs, together with Tom Tugendhat, the UK’s safety minister.
Mr Tugendhat recommended that it will be justifiable to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation after Iran executed a British-Iranian nationwide Alireza Akbari in January.
However, the UK authorities has not adopted by way of.
Talks on Iran’s nuclear programme have been on maintain for months with UN weapons inspectors denied entry to the nation’s key websites. The Foreign Office could also be reluctant to shut the door on future negotiations.
Richard Ratcliffe is aware of precisely what Mr Beheshti goes by way of.
His spouse Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested by the IRGC on a visit to Tehran in 2016. She was convicted of plotting to overthrow the regime and spent years within the nation’s notorious Evin jail.
Mr Ratcliffe mounted a high-profile marketing campaign, which included a starvation strike in 2021, to get his accomplice launched.
“I’ve been on this very spot in a tent like that, for 21 days and that was incredibly hard. I didn’t do it lightly, it felt like a long battle. I feel a lot of what he is going through.”
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There are moments, says Mr Ratcliffe, when excessive acts of protest are needed.
“It’s a visceral form of protest, he’s trying to make a clear statement, for the Foreign Office to explain why it is not (proscribing the IRGC).”
He backs the message and the strategy deployed by Mr Beheshti.
The authorities is “soft-pedalling” on the “Revolutionary Guards” for causes that are “very opaque”, he says.
“I think (the UK government) is treating it like a domestic human rights issue for Iran, not a security issue, but (Mr Beheshti) is right. When you have a situation where British journalists are being threatened on the streets of London, the government has to look seriously at what it can do.”
Source: information.sky.com”