The foreign ministers of the European Union have agreed on Monday a new package of sanctions against Iran for the repression of demonstrations and violations of human rights, as confirmed by the Swedish Government, which presides over the Union this semester.
"The EU strongly condemns the brutal and disproportionate use of force by the Iranian authorities against peaceful protesters," the Swedish presidency said in a tweet.
The restrictive measures, which are added to others imposed in the past months, focus on the people and organizations that have directly participated in the repression of peaceful protests, which has ended with the death of at least 481 people. of the repression of social protests in recent months in Iran, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights,
The list, advanced by EL PAÍS, has been reviewed by the headlines of Foreign Affairs this Monday, the European Commission and the Foreign Action Service.
It included almost twenty people and as many entities, among them the regional branches of the Revolutionary Guard, the paramilitary body that has been one of the pillars of the power machinery in Iran and that has a prominent role in the repression of protests by the death of the young Mahsa Amini, who died last September while in the custody of the morality police after being arrested for wearing the headscarf “inappropriately”.
The new package of sanctions comes at a time when the debate is growing on whether to include the Revolutionary Guard on the list of terrorist organizations in the EU, a label that Germany, for example, is in favor of imposing, according to the minister. Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock.
“We still see in Iran a brutal regime against its own population.
The Iranian regime, the Revolutionary Guard, terrorizes its own population day after day."
The European Parliament has demanded on previous occasions that this paramilitary organization be declared a terrorist entity.
This Monday, the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the EU, Josep Borrell, recalled that the EU cannot make that decision without first having a Member State or several or a national court declare the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist.
“It is something that cannot be decided without a court, a judicial decision first.
You cannot say that I consider you a terrorist because I don't like you”, Borrell declared at the entrance to the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.
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