Iran blacklists more EU and UK officials in tit-for-tat move | Political news
Tehran’s new sanctions deal with the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the alleged supply of Saddam Hussein by Germany.
Tehran, Iran – Iran has imposed new sanctions on individuals and entities in the European Union and the United Kingdom in response to their human rights sanctions and their comments on the ongoing protests in the country.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday announced sanctions against nine entities and 23 individuals, including media institutions, a military base and current and former politicians.
Falling under EU tutelage, Tehran has extended its targeting foreign-based media blacklisting Radio Farda, the Iran-focused branch of US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in addition to Amsterdam-based Radio Zamaneh and French satirical shows. Charlie Hebdo review.
Two German companies, Water Engineering Trading GmbH and Gidlemeister Projekta GmbH, have been blacklisted because they “participated in the production” of chemical weapons used by Saddam Hussein during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.
The EU-related individual sanctions were mainly aimed at German politicians, targeting several former lawmakers, in addition to Bernard Kouchner, an influential French politician and doctor and co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
On the British side, Iran has blacklisted the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and targeted several current parliamentarians in addition to Geoffrey Bindman, president of the British Institute for Human Rights.
Assassination of Soleimani
Several of the sanctions imposed on EU and UK institutions and officials appeared to be linked to the January 2020 assassination of Iran General-in-Chief, Qassem Soleimaniin Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.
The commander of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed by a missile in a US-ordered drone attack, but Tehran has since also condemned Germany, UK and Israel for playing apart.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has blacklisted Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who served as Germany’s defense minister from 2019 to 2021, as well as a commander of German forces in Iraq and a commander of the airbase in Iraq. Ramstein.
He also targeted RAF Menwith Hill, the British Royal Air Force base in North Yorkshire believed to have been involved in the assassination, as well as several British military and intelligence officials.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry imposed his very first sanctions on the first anniversary of Soleimani’s assassination in 2021, targeting former US President Donald Trump and others. This expanded later this list.
“Political pressure”
Iran penalties imposed on a number of other EU and UK officials in October, in retaliation for their human rights sanctions which EU officials say are aimed at punishing the ‘brutal crackdown’ of protests going on in Iran.
The protests began in mid-September after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested in Tehran by the country’s vice police for allegedly failing to adhere to a mandatory dress code.
Iran carried out a second unrest-related execution on Monday, publicly suspended from a crane a man who was found guilty of killing two members of the security forces with a knife. The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have also Iranian officials and entities sanctioned on their response to the protests, in which hundreds of people were killed.
Tehran rejected that, in addition to a vote last month to establish a UN fact-finding mission and an upcoming vote on Wednesday to expel her from the UN Commission on Women’s Rights as foreign interference.
“We emphasize that intervening in the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran is not without reaction,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told reporters on Monday, adding that Tehran will not give in to ” political pressure” from the West.
Tehran’s sanctions include a ban on entry to Iran and the confiscation of any assets they may have in the country.
