Thousands of Iranians participated in a rally in London on Saturday and asked Britain to declare the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.
According to the videos received by Voice of America, the protesters chanted against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranians who oppose the Islamic Republic of Iran had called for the protest rally weeks ago.
Alireza Akhondi, an Iranian-born member of the Swedish Parliament, said on Friday that he would participate in "the big demonstration in London to convince Britain and the countries of the European Union to take the final steps toward weakening the Islamist regime in Iran, including the classification of IRGC as a terrorist organization."
The Association of Families of Flight PS752 victims has also asked the international community to hold the IRGC "accountable for its crimes."
The association was formed after the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane on January 8, 2020, minutes after it took off from Tehran's international airport, by two IRGC missiles. All 176 crew members and passengers, most of whom were Iranians with dual citizenship in Canada, were killed.
In January, when the European Parliament called for the IRGC to be put on the EU's terrorist list, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said the vote was "against international law and the charter of the United Nations" and a "desperate move," the official IRNA news agency said. Raisi said the IRGC is an official body and part of Iran's military.
Hunger strike
Vahid Beheshti, a human rights activist born and raised in Iran, has been on a hunger strike for 66 days in front of the British government's Foreign Office calling on the U.K. to recognize the IRGC as a terrorist group.
Beheshti was arrested twice by the IRGC before he fled Iran 24 years ago.
He met earlier this week with Tariq Ahmad, minister of state for the Middle East, and afterward announced Ahmad's support for adding the name of the IRGC to the terrorist list.
In an interview Tuesday with Panah Farhadbahman, an independent journalist reporting for Voice of America in London, Beheshti said that Ahmad promised to raise his request with the senior officials of the country.
125 lawmakers back plea
On Wednesday, 125 members of the British Parliament signed a letter to the prime minister backing an Iranian activist's plea for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terror organization.
The United States, which previously declared the IRGC a terrorist organization, on Thursday announced sanctions against the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards and its senior officials for their role in the wrongful detention and hostage-taking of Americans.
