The Charity Commission is investigating videos showing Iranian generals giving allegedly antisemitic speeches at UK universities.
The charity watchdog is also assessing videos where chants of “death to Israel” can be heard at a UK Islamic centre.
Some of the footage being investigated is reported to include Holocaust denial. Meanwhile British security services have warned that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the generals are a part of, is trying to radicalise UK Muslims.
The IRGC conducts foreign operations for the Iranian government, as well as backing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
The videos, which Express.co.uk is yet to verify, are said to have been recorded in 2020 and 2021, according to the BBC.
Two of the videos were live-streamed speeches by former and active IRGC commanders, meanwhile the other was in-person speech inside the Kanoon Towhid Islamic centre in west London.
The in-person speech was given to commemorate the death of former Iranian general killed by the United States, Gen Qasem Soleimani.
There were chants of “death to Israel” at the event, according to the national broadcaster.
The Charity Commission can sanction or close down charitable organisations found to be guilty of wrongdoing, such as promoting extremism.
One live stream on Instagram from Iran in September 2020, an IRGC commander Hossein Yekta said universities were “the battlefront”. He urged the students listening to become “soft-war officers”. The video was viewed around 1,500 times.
A government spokesman told the BBC regarding the IRGC: “We have sanctioned more than 350 Iranian individuals and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in its entirety.”
