New European sanctions against Iran and the Revolutionary Guard – Details

German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbok announced Monday that the European Union foreign ministers will make a decision on imposing more sanctions on Iran during their meeting today, noting that more members of the Revolutionary Guards will be added to the sanctions lists.

“We will not accept Iran’s human rights violations,” she told reporters, referring to Iran’s “violations”.

About a month ago, the EU sanctioned eight Iranian individuals and a mobile phone service company.

On April 24th, the European Council, which includes EU member states, decided to impose sanctions on Iran’s Areen Tal, a company that “contributed to the implementation of monitoring operations in which the Iranian government laid down its plans to crush dissent.”

The sanctions also included members of Iran’s parliament, members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Revolutionary Guard Corps Cooperative Organization, which is responsible for managing the Guard’s investments.

The newer measures mean that 211 individuals and 35 entities are now subject to EU sanctions, the European Council said in a statement.

The EU urged the Iranian authorities to stop any form of “violent repression” of peaceful protests, and “to stop using arbitrary arrests as a means of silencing critics and to release all those unjustly detained.”

Iran has been witnessing angry protests since the death of young Iranian-Kurd Mahsa Amini in September 2022, after she was arrested by the morality police for not adhering to strict dress codes.

Human rights organizations outside Iran have recently reported a marked increase in the number of executions carried out by the authorities, with the number of executions carried out in Iran by hanging during 2022 rising by 75% to at least 582.

The death penalty has again been used as “a fundamental tool of intimidation and repression by the Iranian regime, with the aim of maintaining the stability of its power,” say the rights groups, and reports confirm that hundreds of detainees are currently on death row or on trial on charges punishable by death.

Iran is the second largest country in the world in terms of the number of executions carried out after China, according to Amnesty International.