Status: 11/12/2022 12:02 p.m
The EU has launched a third package of sanctions against Iran. Germany wants to tighten the course even further. The UN Human Rights Council is also expected to deal with Iran soon.
The EU states have agreed on further punitive measures against Iran because of the violence by security forces against demonstrators. The Permanent Representatives Committee of the Member States in Brussels approved the plans. The formal decision is to follow at a meeting of foreign ministers on Monday. Especially Germany had campaigned for the sanctions package.
It is said to specifically affect 31 people and institutions – including, for example, high-ranking representatives of the police and the Basij militias. They are to be subject to entry bans and assets held in the EU are to be frozen.
Germany demands terror classification of the Revolutionary Guards
Germany would like to go one step further and classify the Revolutionary Guards in Iran as a terrorist organization. According to information from EU circles, this should not be feasible in the short term. According to critics, the measure could reduce the already slim chances of a continuation of the nuclear agreement with Iran. This is intended to persuade Tehran to permanently renounce the development of nuclear weapons.
The Revolutionary Guards are the elite unit of the Iranian armed forces and far more important than the classic army. They report directly to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all strategic matters. The entity also has great political and economic influence in Iran.
Scholz defends sanctions
Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended the planned new sanctions against Iran in view of the human rights situation there. “The Iranian government is solely responsible for the explosion of violence,” said Scholz in his weekly Internet format “Kanzler compact”. Iran is a member of the UN and is committed to upholding and protecting human rights.
Iran announced an “appropriate and decisive” response in the event of new sanctions. “Provocative, interventionist and undiplomatic positions do not show maturity and wisdom,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian wrote on Twitter a few days ago.
Scholz said of these threats to the leadership in Tehran: “What kind of government are you that shoots at its own citizens? Anyone who acts like this must count on our resistance.” “More than 300 dead – a string of death sentences, more than 14,000 arrests” – hardly anyone in Germany can imagine how much courage it takes to take to the streets in Iran for freedom and justice, the Chancellor continued.
UN Human Rights Council to deal with Iran
Germany and Iceland have requested a special session of the UN Human Rights Council. They sent a corresponding letter to the Council Secretariat, as announced by the German embassy in Geneva. The meeting is scheduled to take place during the week beginning November 21st.
“We will also give an international voice to the courageous women and men in Iran who have been taking to the streets for weeks for their rights,” said the German Ambassador in Geneva, Katharina Stasch. “We want facts to be able to be collected independently and human rights violations to be brought before national and international courts.”
The 47 member countries of the Human Rights Council cannot impose sanctions. However, they can adopt a resolution condemning the violence and set in motion a mechanism to investigate the situation more closely.
Almost 15,000 arrests during protests
Since the death of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini, tens of thousands have been demonstrating across the country against the government’s repressive course and the Islamic system of rule. According to human rights activists, almost 15,000 participants in demonstrations have been arrested so far.
Morality police arrested Amini in September for allegedly violating Islamic dress codes. The young woman died in police custody a few days later. According to reliable reports and witnesses, she was brutally beaten and ill-treated, which ultimately led to her death. The police deny this account to this day.