IRGC to be listed as terrorist in Sweden

The Swedish Parliament voted in favor of designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization yesterday.

It followed the execution this week of Swedish-Iranian Habib Chaab (Asyud) which saw Sweden's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summon Iran's charge d'affaires in protest of the execution, one of hundreds since the start of the year.

Iran's relations with Sweden have been strained since July when a Swedish court sentenced a former Iranian jailor, Hamid Nouri, to life imprisonment over executions of political prisoners in 1988.

The European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution in January calling on the EU and member states to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group.

The resolution demanded Iranian authorities end the crackdown on popular protests that started last September after a 22-year-old woman was killed in hijab police custody.

It also demanded that Europe should sanction the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and its president Ebrahim Raisi.

Despite numerous requests and rallies by Iranians living abroad, the European Union has not yet proscribed the IRGC.

The United States designated the IRGC as a global terrorist organization in 2019. It has carried out multiple cyber-attacks and threats to the lives of Iranians abroad, including staff at Iran International based in the UK.