Iran protests
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he summoned Iran’s top diplomat on Monday to make clear his country would “not tolerate” threats to journalists on its soil.
The European Union has expanded its sanctions against Iran over allegations of human rights violations, designating two legal entities and 32 people, including the ministers of culture and education, intelligence officials and lawmakers, who are accused of being linked to the security crackdown on protesters, the EU’s official newspaper reported Monday.
“In accordance with the European Union’s commitment to resolve all issues of concern with respect to Iran, including human rights cases, 32 individuals and two entities should be included in the list of individuals, entities, organizations and bodies against which restrictive measures are being applied,” the newspaper said.
The European Union said it imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 32 officials and froze the assets of the two organizations for their involvement “in serious human rights violations in Iran”.
The bloc, which includes 27 countries, has already imposed 4 rounds of sanctions on Iranian officials and organizations – including ministers, military officers and the Iranian moral police – for alleged human rights violations.
James Cleverly
British Foreign Minister (AP)
In addition, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said that he summoned Iran’s top diplomat today, Monday, to make it clear that his country “will not tolerate” threats to journalists on its soil.
And the British Foreign Secretary warned, through his Twitter account, that Iran’s threats “will not go unanswered.”
Cleverly added that Britain imposed sanctions on individuals in “the regime because of their involvement in the suppression and killing of the Iranian people, including children.”
And the British newspaper “The Guardian” reported, last Saturday, that the British anti-terrorism police announced that they had thwarted what they called 15 Iranian plans to kidnap or kill Britons or people that Tehran considers “enemies” of the Iranian regime.
According to human rights activists in Iran, at least 529 people have died in the demonstrations. And the authorities arrested more than 19,700 others in the midst of a violent security crackdown in an effort to suppress dissent. Some of those linked to the protests were also executed.
Earlier, Finland’s foreign minister expressed concern about Tehran’s practices that violate human rights.
Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, said on Monday European Union is about to impose sanctions on dozens of Iranians, including judges, for their role in issuing death sentences for protesters.
“Judges, prison staff and those who sentence others to death … dozens of their names will be included on the list,” he added.
Al-Arabiya / Al-Hadath correspondent reported two days ago that the European Union was preparing to announce a new package of sanctions against Tehran, on Monday.
It is reported that since mid-September 2022, protests have started in large areas in Iran, following the killing of the Kurdish young woman, Mahsa Amini.
These protests are still repeated from time to time in a number of regions, although they have subsided over the past two months.
It is noteworthy that this European sanctions package is the fifth since October 2022. Previous sanctions affected several Iranian officials, including the commander of the “morality police”, for their involvement in this crackdown.
In another context, the European Union’s foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, revealed that the Union had received important information about the developments of Iran’s nuclear program, stressing that a new and important package of sanctions would be imposed on Iran.