Iran: Protests Debate
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Chris Coghlan
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Iran: Protests
Chris Coghlan Excerpts(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Mr Falconer
Putting Iran on the FIRS regime means that there is a new offence of seeking to act on behalf of the Iranian regime in the UK without properly so declaring, so it is harder for people to do that in this country without being exposed to the force of law enforcement. As I said just now to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies), UK law enforcement has proved itself capable of finding these people and ensuring that they are prosecuted.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
There have been many calls across the Chamber for sanctions and the proscription of the IRGC, which I fully support. I think we need to be honest and admit that those measures are unlikely to save the lives of protesters who are under a regime fearing for its survival, but I point out that the drone strike in 2020 against Soleiman, the head of the IRGC, did influence Iranian behaviour.
These protests follow on from western military intervention. As was pointed out by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), the United States President has explicitly called on the protesters to overthrow the regime. That reminds me of the 1991 Shi’a uprisings in Iraq; President Bush did exactly the same in the aftermath of the Gulf war, and left those people to be massacred by Saddam Hussein’s helicopter gunships. Is the Minister considering that legacy in his deliberations?
Mr Falconer
When it comes to events across the middle east, I am reluctant to focus on a particular incident in the long and, I am afraid, fraught history of interventions and the violence that follows them, but we are of course considering the broader history of the wider region as we consider our response.