Belgian parliament calls on EU to list Iran's Revolutionary Guard as terrorist organisation
The paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) report directly to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and are tasked with safeguarding the regime – notably by suppressing dissent, such as the protests following the death of activist Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
In early 2023, the European Parliament had already called on the Council of the European Union to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, but the resolution was not taken up.
Belgian MPs want to see the implementation of stricter economic retaliatory measures against the Iranian regime, and called for an expanded list of sanctioned individuals to include members of the judiciary and senior officials overseeing the Iranian prison system.
Today's resolution also referred to the case of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian citizen and visiting professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), who was arrested in Iran in 2016 and sentenced to death for 'corruption on earth' in 2017.
The researcher is believed to have been transferred from Evin prison – which was bombed by the Israeli air force in June – to another detention facility.
Besides calling for tougher rules on Iran, MPs also approved stricter rules on family reunifications, which are one of the main channels of asylum into Belgium, through a higher income threshold. Applicants must now earn at least 110% of the guaranteed minimum income (€2,323), plus an additional 10% for each family member. The law will shorten or remove grace periods for family members of refugees and extends the waiting period before relatives may be brought to Belgium. The minimum age for reunification has been raised to 21.
(vib)
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