Tehran Cleric Issues Death Fatwa Against Hunger Striker Beheshti

British Iranian activist Vahid Beheshti has revealed that a fatwa calling for his death has been issued by a cleric in the Islamic Republic.

Recovering in hospital from a hunger strike of more than two months, the campaigner posted a video Tuesday saying: “Through my contacts in Iran, I have been given this latest information that the religious platform for my death has been issued by one of the clerics of Islamic Republic of Iran connected to IRGC.”

A defiant Beheshti added: “If you release 10 fatwas for my death. We won't stop our activities. We wouldn't step in this path.”

He has been in hospital since May 5, before which he had survived for 73 days on nothing but water, coffee, salt and sugar cubes.

His hunger strike outside the British Foreign Office in London had been devoted to raising awareness about atrocities committed in his homeland and to pressure UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to proscribe the IRGC as a terror group, Beheshti described it as “the most brutal mafia in the world”.

Beheshti said Sunak's government should not wait any longer to proscribe the IRGC but rather move forward now.

The activist warned if ministers refuse to act, IRGC agents will eventually force them to do so: “If they come to the streets of London and do something tragic, then it’s too late to wake up.”

Beheshti is not the only UK citizen under threat from Tehran. MI5, the UK's domestic security agency, revealed last year that at least ten Iranian plots to kill or abduct British citizens had been discovered.