Senior commanders from antisemitic Islamist terrorist group IRGC found to have spoken on university campuses
Senior commanders from the antisemitic Islamist terrorist group, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), have been addressing students across university campuses, it has been revealed.
The JC has reportedly discovered eight IRGC leaders who, since 2020, have spoken to students nationally, using the Islamic Students Association of Britain to arrange the lectures.
The Islamic Students Association of Britain has branches on university campuses in Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Cambridge.
Saeed Ghasemi, reported to be a former general in the organisation, allegedly told British students that the Holocaust was “fake”.
“The one that the Jews say happened is fake. The real Holocaust happened in my country in the First World War, 1917-19, when the UK occupied Iran,” he reportedly said during an online talk.
He also is reported to have encouraged his audience of students to join “the beautiful list of soldiers” who would fight and kill Jews in a coming apocalyptic war.
Hossein Yekta, another person believed to be a high-ranking IRGC member, is said to have accused Jews of having “created homosexuality”. He allegedly told students they should view themselves as “holy warriors”, promising them that the “era of the Jews” would soon be at an end.
In the wake of the shocking revelations, numerous politicians have voiced concerns.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative Party MP for Rutland and Melton and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: “In organising such despicable talks, the Islamic Students Association of Britain acts at best as a willing propaganda arm of the Iranian regime, and at worst as an agitator for state sponsored terrorism. To broadcast the jihadist and deeply antisemitic ideas of senior members of the IRGC to students across Britain is a brazen act of radicalisation. We must pursue and prosecute those responsible trying to incite violence here in the UK.”
David Lammy, the Labour Party MP for Tottenham and Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, said: “The invitation of IRGC commanders and other speakers who glorify its actions to speak to British students is incredibly concerning. Robust action is needed now.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The reports that IRGC commanders are addressing students on British campuses are alarming. This is an antisemitic Islamist terrorist organisation that has repeatedly targeted Jewish people and institutions in Britain and around the world and sponsors practically every major terror group in the Middle East. The IRGC cannot be allowed to disseminate its propaganda in the UK and radicalise impressionable students. What further evidence does the Government need to see before it heeds calls from us and others to ban the IRGC once and for all?”
A statement from the Union of Jewish Students stated that the group was “disgusted” by the news.
“UJS is disgusted that senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps have been speaking on several campuses across the UK,” the statement said.
“These commanders boasted that the Holocaust was ‘fake’, that they trained al-Qaeda terrorists, and urged students to join ‘the beautiful list of soldiers’ who would fight and kill Jews in an apocalyptic war. We are deeply concerned for Jewish student welfare. This can never be allowed to happen again. We will seek urgent meetings on behalf of Jewish students with senior university leaders and the Government to ensure Jewish students can be safe on campus, free from this hatred that has no place in our society.”
Earlier this year, Campaign Against Antisemitism wrote to all MPs calling on them to back the Government’s reported proposal to proscribe the IRGC under the Terrorism Act 2000.
We provided the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, and the Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat, and all MPs with a dossier on the IRGC, detailing its horrendous record of antisemitism and violence against Jewish people.
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has a long and appalling record of promoting antisemitic propaganda, including Holocaust-denial, and funding and orchestrating violence against Jews. This is in addition to being the world’s biggest state-sponsor of terrorism more generally, the effects of which are not only profound in the Middle East but felt on every continent in the world. According to our nation’s security chiefs, Iran directly threatens the UK.
But what is less known is that it is specifically the IRGC that is one of the principal instruments through which the Iranian regime carries out these endeavours.
Founded in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the IRGC is a paramilitary force that answers directly to the radical regime. Its purpose is to serve as a praetorian guard for the theocracy at home and to advance its interests abroad. That includes training, arming and supporting terrorist groups and encouraging strategic acts of terror against targets deemed hostile to the Islamic Republic.
The IRGC has a paramount role in cultivating antisemitic sentiment, giving succour to antisemites and backing terrorism against Jews.
The IRGC is a vital organ pumping out antisemitic propaganda in Iran and through the Middle East, it emboldens those who wish harm to Jewish people in the name of extremist religion, and it is the indispensable patron of such antisemitic genocidal terrorist groups as Hizballah and Hamas, both of which are proscribed by the UK.
