Britain’s government lists the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization—membership, participation in its meetings, and displaying its symbols in public will be criminal offenses

The British government has placed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a list of terrorist organizations, under which membership in the institution, participation in its meetings, and displaying its symbols in public will be criminal offenses.

The IRGC had previously been fully subject to British sanctions, but different governments in the UK had refused to designate it as a terrorist organization.

London had been under pressure for years from Parliament and security agencies to take this step. The UK’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, said it had thwarted more than 20 potentially deadly plots linked to the Islamic Republic.

The government said in January that the existing mechanism for banning an entity linked to a foreign state was not appropriate and that it was drafting new legal powers for this purpose.