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BRUSSELS, Jan. 23 (AP) – The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on dozens of Iranian officials and organizations, including a government minister, regional governors and lawmakers, for their alleged involvement in a security crackdown on protesters but did not include Iran. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards added to its blacklist of terrorist groups.
At a meeting in Brussels, EU foreign ministers agreed to a travel ban and asset freeze on Iran’s sports and youth minister Hamid Sajjadi, accusing him of pressuring Iranian athletes to keep silent, including one who competed in Seoul. There are no Iranian climbers wearing Islamic headgear.
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Iranian special police units were also targeted, accused of “using excessive violence and lethal force against unarmed protesters, including women and children … firing automatic weapons at protesters”.
Another asset freeze is against the Iranian government agency Enjoining Right and Forbidding Evil, which the EU believes is responsible for “identifying and enforcing overly restrictive patterns of behavior in society”.
Companies related to cybersecurity, spyware, social media filtering and the production of security equipment allegedly used in the crackdown were also hit. Restrictive measures were taken against senior officials of the Revolutionary Guard and some of its regional units.
The 27-nation bloc has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iranian officials and organizations – including ministers, military officers and Iran’s morality police – for human rights violations over the protests that erupted in mid-September over the death of Mahsa Amini.
The 22-year-old woman died after being arrested by morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly removing the mandatory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab.
At least four people have been executed after swift trials behind closed doors since the demonstrations began.
At least 519 people were killed and more than 19,200 others were arrested, according to Iranian human rights activists who have been monitoring the rally.
The movement has emerged as one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s Shia theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The move means the EU’s sanctions now apply to a total of 164 people and 31 “entities”, such as institutions, companies or banks. It also banned the export of equipment to Iran that could be used to suppress or monitor telecommunications.
But ministers have refrained from acting on blacklisting the Guard, despite the European Parliament calling on them to do so last week.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who chaired the meeting, said that would only happen after a member state’s courts ruled condemning the Guard’s terror.
“This is something that cannot be decided without a court decision,” he told reporters.
European officials are also concerned that blacklisting the National Guard would all but end the EU’s slim hopes of restarting the Iran nuclear deal, which has been frozen since the Trump administration pulled out of the internationally-backed pact in 2018.
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg regretted Tehran’s recent actions and backed plans to impose new sanctions.
Iran is “in the midst of a conflict, not only with the international community but with its own people over the security of its nuclear program, with civil society movements being brutally suppressed,” Schallenberg said. Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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