The European Union’s foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, said on Monday that the bloc cannot include the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the list of terrorist entities, except following a decision is issued by an EU court stating that.
Last week, the European Parliament called on the Union to include the Revolutionary Guards on the list of terrorist entities, accusing it of being responsible for suppressing protests inside Iran and for providing Russia with drones.
“This matter cannot be decided without a court, a court decision first. You cannot say I consider you a terrorist because you do not like me,” Borrell told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
He added that a court in an EU member state would have to issue a concrete legal conviction before the bloc itself might act on the matter.
AndEuropean Parliament request The European Union, last Wednesday, blacklisted the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as “terrorist organisations”.
In a widely adopted text added to the annual report on the common foreign policy, the members of the European Parliament, during a plenary session, “call on the Union and its member states to include the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations.”
Iran has been witnessing protests since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, days following she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran for not adhering to strict dress codes. Many people were sentenced to death in connection with the protests, while some were executed.