‘The IRGC are on British soil,’ says woman beaten during London protest
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A woman beaten by supporters of Iran’s government during a peaceful protest in London has warned that the “IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] are on British soil”.
Ellie Borham, 43, said she was minutes into a five-person protest in London when a group of pro-Iran supporters surrounded and beat her.
“We were standing peacefully, and then the men came. They surrounded us. They threatened us,” she told The Telegraph. “They slapped and punched my face, my body, my legs. One of the men said: ‘We are going to kill you’.”
“It is unbelievable. Four of us were injured. This was the hands of the IRGC on UK soil,” she added.
The clash occurred outside an event marking the death of Ebrahim Raisi, the president who died alongside the country’s foreign minister and six others in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
Raisi was a pillar of Iran’s hard-line Islamic regime known for overseeing a brutal crackdown on protestors and repressing political dissidents.
Ms Borham, a software engineer who moved to the UK to study 19 years ago and has British citizenship, said the protestors arrived outside the event in Wembley “to show we were upset” with their meeting.
“The true people of Iran are not upset about Raisi’s death – he was one of the head leaders ordering the execution of innocent people. That person was evil, evil, to us he was like Hitler, like Saddam Hussein,” she said.
During the 63-year-old’s tenure, protests ignited across the country when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being arrested under Iran’s harsh hijab laws.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said officers were called to the site at 18:21 on Friday following reports of disorder.
“An event was taking place to mark the death of the president of Iran, attended by supporters of the Iranian government. Anti-government protesters had gathered outside the venue and clashes had broken out between the groups,” the force said.
Four people were injured and were treated by paramedics, while one man was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder and a dispersal order was implemented.
Ms Borham, who founded the activist group Stage of Freedom after Amini’s death, said she was then followed to the hospital by two cars from the pro-Iranian group. “They were waiting for us outside the hospital,” she said, adding that the cars only left when the police arrived an hour later.
She has urged the UK Government to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
“We only have one request, for the UK government to pay attention and designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation – not just for the safety of the people in Iran, but for the safety of the British people,” she said.
London is home to a large Iranian community, most of whom left in the years since the country’s Islamic revolution in 1979.
The police said they would examine footage shared on social media and called on anyone with other footage or information to get in contact.
