The UK on Monday (23 January) announced new sanctions against Iranian officials, including the Deputy Attorney General, in response to the crackdown and execution of Iranian-British Alireza Akbari "
for political purposes
".
These new sanctions, asset freezes and travel bans against five people and two entities, bring to 50 the sanctions imposed in response to "
human rights violations
" perpetrated by Tehran since the death of Mahsa Amini, according to the British diplomacy.
The death of this 22-year-old young woman in mid-September following her arrest by the morality police for an alleged violation of the dress code for women sparked numerous demonstrations whose repression left hundreds dead.
Show unanimous condemnation
"
These sanctions
", together with those of the European Union and the United States, "
show the unanimous condemnation of the international community of the terrible violence that the Iranian regime is inflicting on its own people, including the execution of the binational British- Iranian Alireza Akbari
,” the UK Foreign Office said in a statement.
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Former senior official in the Iranian Ministry of Defense, Alireza Akbari, 61, was hanged on January 14 after being sentenced to death, accused of spying for the benefit of the United Kingdom.
His execution provoked the indignation of Western countries and NGOs.
The British sanctions notably target security service officials and the deputy attorney general, Ahmad Fazelian.
Use of the death penalty “for political purposes”
Alongside Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, already sanctioned a week ago by London for emphasizing his "
disgust
" after the execution of Alireza Akbari, Ahmad Fazelian is held responsible by London for a "
judicial system characterized by "
unfair trials"
and "
the use of the death penalty for political purposes".
"Those being sanctioned today (...) are at the heart of the regime's brutal repression of the Iranian people," British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said.
Western sanctions send a 'clear message'
that there will be
'nowhere to hide' for those who are guilty of the worst human rights abuses," he added, as the EU added 37 Iranian individuals or entities involved in the crackdown to its sanctions list, which now numbers 60.
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