EU and UK sanction Iranian judges and senior Revolutionary Guard commanders

Britain takes aim at financiers accused of assisting clampdown on protesters

Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Photo: IRGC/Wana

The EU and Britain on Monday imposed sanctions on senior commanders from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution and officials accused of having links to the security crackdown on protesters.

The protests began after the death on September 16 of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the morality police. They have grown into one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 revolution.

At least 529 people have been killed in demonstrations, according to human rights activists in Iran. More than 19,700 others have been detained by authorities amid a crackdown. Some people linked to the protests have been executed.

The EU said it had imposed asset freezes and travel bans on the eight officials and frozen the assets of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution due to its involvement “in serious human rights violations in Iran”.

Europe said the council was “a regime policy body” that “promoted several projects undermining the freedom of girls and women, setting limits on their clothing and education”, adding: “Its decisions have also discriminated against minorities.”

Those placed under sanctions include clerics undermining the freedom of women and girls, such as Ahmad Alam Al Hoda, an imam in the city of Mashhad. He is described by the EU as participating in the “propagation of hate against women, demonstrators and religious minorities”.

Also among them are members of the judiciary responsible for handing down death sentences in unfair trials and for the torturing of convicts. They include Mohammad Sadegh Akbari, chief justice of Mazandaran province, and Musa Asif Al Hosseini, head judge of the first branch of the revolutionary courts of the city of Karaj.

Monday's announcement was the sixth round of sanctions that the 27-nation bloc has imposed on Iranian officials and organisations — including other ministers, military officers and Iran’s morality police — for alleged rights abuses.

The UK Foreign Office in parallel imposed sanctions on senior members of the IRGC, including those who it said were responsible for managing the group's financial investments.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said its measures were aimed at five key financiers within the IRGC and two other senior commanders over gross human rights violations following protests that broke out after the death of Ms Amini late last year.

The sanctions — which include an asset freeze and UK travel ban — were imposed on five members on the board of directors of the IRGC Co-operative Foundation and two senior IRGC commanders operating in Tehran and Alborz provinces.

“Today we are taking action on the senior leaders within the IRGC who are responsible for funnelling money into the regime's brutal repression,” UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said.

“Together with our partners around the world, we will continue to stand with the Iranian people as they call for fundamental change in Iran.”

The British government has already placed sanctions on more than a dozen IRGC officials over the clampdown on human rights protests, in which more than 500 people have been killed and tens of thousands imprisoned.

However, the Foreign Office has so far resisted calls to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, fearing this would prompt retaliatory measures by Tehran and put more UK-Iranian dual citizens at risk of being arbitrarily detained.

Iran’s execution of British-Iranian citizen Ali Reza Akbari on spying charges last month further soured diplomatic relations.

The IRGC was set up shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shiite clerical ruling system. It has an estimated 125,000-strong military with army, navy and air units, and commands the Basij religious militia often used in crackdowns.