“The EU strongly condemns the unacceptable and violent crackdown on protesters. We support the Iranian people, protest peacefully and support their right to freely express their demands and opinions We will,” the EU’s head of foreign policy Josep Borrell said after the bloc’s foreign minister backed the sanctions.
The move prompted 29 Iranian officials, including Interior Minister Ahmad Bahidi, who said the EU was “responsible for serious human rights violations in Iran” due to the actions of police during the protests. A ban will be imposed.
The EU also targeted Iran’s state-run television broadcaster Press TV, saying it was “responsible for producing and broadcasting forced confessions of detainees”.
In what appears to be a coordinated move, the UK also announced that Iran’s Minister of Communications Issa Zalepour and several local law enforcement and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials had been sent to the UK for their role in cracking down on the protests. said to face similar limitations in
Zarepour and Iran’s Cyber Police Chief Vahid Mohammad Naser Majid targeted for “blocking Iran’s internet, including disabling Whatsapp and Instagram, banning the use of Google Play apps and virtual private networks (VPNs)” was made the statement said.
Twenty-two other Iranian political and security officials also said they were listed in the UK for “brutal violence aimed at protesters”.
The EU called on Iran to end the violence, release those detained, allow the free flow of information, including via the internet, and called for an independent investigation into Amini’s death. It is the second sanctions the bloc has imposed on Iran over the protests.
On Monday’s broadcast, French President Emmanuel Macron praised Iranian women for speaking up.
“Iranian women are waging this fight with extraordinary courage at a time when their lives and those of their loved ones are threatened,” Macron told public radio France Inter. said.
Their rebellion against the clerical-led state has “bursted the ideological bubble” that Tehran has sent to the world, Macron said. Namely, Iranians did not want Western values, and Iranian women were “somehow happy to live in this perpetual state of interference.” ”
His comments were recorded after meeting with four Iranian women’s rights activists in exile in Paris on Friday.
Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, accused Macron of meeting with activists. The activists included two US-based Iranian dissidents, Massif Alinejad and Radan Boromand. Kanani told President Macron on Monday that “their true nature is known to the Iranian people” was a “wrong and short-sighted policy” to support Iranian dissidents, and that France’s It warned that it could jeopardize “long-term profits”.
Jill Lawless of London contributed to this report.
