Urging the European Union to expeditiously designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization under Common Position 931, and for other purposes.

Urging the European Union to expeditiously designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization under Common Position 931, and for other purposes.

Whereas the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Basij paramilitary force have been used by Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei to maintain the Iranian regime’s power;

Whereas the IRGC Basij have been used to quash numerous protests and democratic uprisings in Iran, including the Green Movement;

Whereas the IRGC Basij continue to perpetrate wide-scale human rights abuses inside Iran, including against women, children, and minorities;

Whereas the IRGC Basij are actively suppressing the ongoing protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini and calls for the regime to be toppled;

Whereas the IRGC Basij are responding to these demonstrations with violence, arrests, and murder, including the arrest of journalists covering these protests;

Whereas the IRGC trains, funds, arms, and shares intelligence with dangerous proxy forces throughout the Middle East and abroad, including Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Houthis, and Kata’ib Hezbollah, which have targeted civilians and both Europeans and Americans;

Whereas the IRGC continues to provide critical support to Bashar al-Assad and his autocratic regime in Syria;

Whereas the IRGC is actively fueling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine through the provision of hundreds of lethal kamikaze drones and overseeing plans for the construction of a new factory in Russia with the capacity to produce thousands of Iranian-designed drones;

Whereas the Iranian-assisted Russian war of aggression poses a direct threat to European security and sovereignty;

Whereas the IRGC has targeted dissidents around the world, including throughout Europe;

Whereas the IRGC Quds Force is responsible for Iranian extraterritorial operations, and they likely played a key role in Iranian assassinations in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Bulgaria, and Cyprus in recent years;

Whereas the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Denmark, and Albania have all either arrested or expelled Iranian Government officials implicated in terrorist or assassination plots in their respective countries;

Whereas the IRGC engaged in a murder-for-hire plot to target former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for their efforts targeting the IRGC and killing IRGC-Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani;

Whereas the IRGC was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States in 2019;

Whereas Iran executed British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari and as a result the United Kingdom is considering designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization;

Whereas in response to the European Union’s consideration of designating the IRGC a terrorist organization, IRGC Commander Hossein Salami has threatened European countries;

Whereas the European Parliament in January 2023 voted 598 to 9 in favor of designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization as part of its annual foreign and security policy report;

Whereas the European Parliament also in January 2023 voted overwhelmingly in favor separate Iran-focused resolution that called for designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization;

Whereas thus far the European Union has only sanctioned individual members and leaders of the IRGC as terrorists but have not yet designated the IRGC in its entirety;

Whereas under European Council Common Position of December 27, 2001, on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism (2001/931/CFSP) (in this preamble referred to as “Common Position 931”), the European Union can designate terrorist organizations if “a decision has been taken by a competent authority” that they are a terrorist organization;

Whereas under Council Common Position 931 on combating terrorism, the European Union defines “competent authority” to include “a judicial authority”;

Whereas proposals for terrorist organization designations by the European Union can come from third-party countries, including the United States; and

Whereas previous Department of Justice investigations and convictions provide the European Union sufficient proof under Common Position 931: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved,