Few people outside Iran understand the brutality of his regime better than Shiva Mabobi.

She was first arrested as a 12-year-old while growing up in Iranian Kurdistan after hardline Islamists took power in 1979 for protesting against school closures.

Her classes eventually resumed, but students were gripped by fear. “They arrested some of my 14-year-old friends. They executed them,” she told I. “You’re in a school and you see people disappear.”

At 16, she was arrested again. This resulted in her being incarcerated for more than three years and moved from one unknown location to another, without access to her family. At one point, she shared a cell with a woman who had been raped. Other times, she was held in solitary confinement for up to seven months, without lights or even a toilet.

They tortured her: blindfolded her, bound her, and whipped her feet.

Even after that, she refused to give in. “When they can’t break you, it just makes you angrier.”

Mahbobi eventually fled Iran in 1992, believing she was about to be arrested again, and eventually moved to the UK in 2001, where she worked as a psychotherapist.

Of course, the threats and intimidation should end there. if.

Many other Iranian dissidents face ongoing harassment in the UK today. They say it’s gotten worse.

While men suffer too – like journalist Pouria Zeraati, who was stabbed last month – many of the most powerful activists are women, who are bombarded with messages of sexual violence.

“I received a lot of threats to rape me and kill me, and it started happening every day,” said Mabobi, the group’s co-founder. Iran’s campaign to release political prisoners.

“The threat is always there. As an activist you always have to face it…but not to this extent.”

She is among those calling on the British government to ban Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization due to its links to recent plots to attack the London-based opposition.

Prime Minister is unwilling to do so Because the agency has close ties to the Iranian government and the foreign ministry believes it could harm diplomatic relations with Tehran at such a dangerous time in the Middle East.

Mabobi felt betrayed by the decision. The government says it takes the threat very seriously and is doing everything it can to protect people.

“As a campaigner for British citizens, it’s really disappointing that our lives don’t seem to matter,” she said. “The government had a responsibility to keep me safe – and they didn’t.”

She believes this is a public safety issue that extends beyond her small community.

“I’m not sure why more hasn’t been done. When Britain faces threats, it’s not just Iranian activists. When terrorists threaten people everywhere, the non-Iranians around them are also at risk.

“If you live in a building and someone attacks one of the apartments, you can’t say that building is safe.”

The women’s rights activist is glad she has never been physically attacked, but she feels danger is never far away, especially when she attends rallies against the regime.

“I know a guy who was doing a sit-in in a tent and was attacked in the middle of the night by people with their faces covered. People were also attacked at demonstrations in front of the Iranian embassy.

“We have to be very careful that no one follows us, [that we] Do not travel alone as dangers are always present. I am always alert. It has a huge emotional impact. ”

She added: “One thing that has changed compared to a few decades ago is that now they use a lot of hit men and gangs to carry out the attacks, rather than just doing it themselves.”

In fact, police apparently believe the three men who stabbed Zelati were Eastern Europe Agent.