Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
The Council of the European Union decided on Monday to impose restrictive measures on five individuals and two additional entities responsible for gross human rights violations in Iran.
The new lists include the current commander of Iran's Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) Tehran Police Relief Unit, and someone associated with the "Mariam Arvin case" - a lawyer who was brutally arrested, seriously mistreated, and subsequently died because of her activities. In defense of the protesters.
According to a European statement issued on the sidelines of the meeting of foreign ministers of the member states of the Union, "Today's sanctions also target the spokesman for the Iranian police, and the secretary of the Supreme Council for Cyberspace in Iran (SCC), which is the authority responsible for repression in cyberspace.
Moreover, the council listed the IRGC Cooperative Corporation, the body responsible for managing the IRGC’s investments and transferring funds to the regime’s brutal repression and the Basij Student Organization (SBO). The latter act as violent enforcers of the IRGC on university campuses where students staged protests in the fall of 2022, and were then victims of repression and gross human rights abuses such as kidnapping and torture.
The restrictive measures now apply to a total of 216 individuals and 37 entities. It consists of an asset freeze, a travel ban to the European Union, and a ban on making funds or economic resources available to those on the list. Exports to Iran of equipment that could be used for internal repression and communications monitoring equipment were also banned.
Through the statement, the European Union expressed its support for the fundamental aspirations of the people of Iran for a future in which universal human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected, protected and fulfilled.
The European Union also called on Iran to end the practice of imposing and carrying out death sentences against protesters, to overturn the death sentences imposed, as well as to provide due process for all detainees. The EU also calls on Iran to end the painful practice of detaining foreign civilians for political gain.
Today's package of lists follows the previous seven batches adopted by the Council on October 17, November 14, and December 12, 2022, and January 23, February 20, March 20, and April 24, 2023.
The relevant legal texts have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union.