The European Union has proposed sanctions against Iran’s interior minister and 14 other senior officials for their role in a violent crackdown on nationwide protests that erupted in late December, documents obtained by RFE/RL show.
Protests erupted on December 28 over economic woes including currency collapse but morphed into anti-regime demonstrations that were met with lethal force.
The bloc’s foreign ministers could adopt the measures, which include asset freezes and visa bans, when they meet in Brussels on January 29. All member states must vote in favor for the sanctions to be adopted.
The proposal, dated January 20 and circulated within the EU Council, targets Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, who oversees Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces (LEF), and security units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) that are blamed for hundreds of protester deaths.
Prosecutor-General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad faces designation for threatening demonstrators with death penalties on charges of “enmity against God” during the unrest.
Momeni, also deputy commander-in-chief, commanded forces that “suppressed street protests,” which saw thousands of casualties, according to the EU document.
Regional IRGC commanders including Heydar Olfati in Ilam Province and Ahmad Ali Feyzollahi of the IRGC Ground Forces elite Saberin Brigade are accused of ordering troops to open fire on peaceful crowds.
The town of Malekshahi in the western Ilam Province experienced some of the deadliest clashes, with video footage documenting security forces firing at protesters in broad daylight.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says that as of January 22 it had verified 4,902 deaths, including 201 security forces, with more than 9,300 deaths still under investigation.
The proposed EU measures also hit six entities enabling repression, from the Iranian Audio-Visual Media Regulatory Authority (SATRA) for censoring dissent to tech firms Yaftar and Douran developing VPN blockers and facial recognition tools. The Working Group for Determining Instances of Criminal Content (WGDICC), a judicial body filtering and censoring Internet access, is also being targeted.
Iranians have been cut off from the outside world since January 8, when the authorities imposed a near-total nationwide Internet shutdown as the crackdown on protests intensified. It remains unclear when services will resume, but even when they do, experts fear the authorities will force Iranians to use a domestically designed “intranet” that works independently from the world’s Internet.
IRGC Designation Unlikely
The proposed asset freezes and visa bans come as the bloc has been under pressure for years — both externally and internally — to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. However, no such measure will likely be adopted next week.
Unanimity is needed to blacklist the elite force, which is deeply embedded in Iran’s economy and drives the Islamic republic’s regional policies. However, Italy, France, and Spain are the three countries in the 27-member bloc opposed to the designation and there is no indication they will shift their position.
Sanctions For Helping Russia
A separate proposal dated January 16 targets four individuals and six firms tied to Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs supplying Moscow.
The entities include Sahara Thunder and Khojir Missile Development and Production Complex.
The document describes Sahara Thunder as a Defense Ministry front company acting as an import-export cover to ship drones, components, and technology to Russia, receiving payments in return.
The Khojir complex, meanwhile, is involved in the production of Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles allegedly sent to Russia, where troops are being trained to use them. It is managed jointly by the IRGC and Defense Ministry and builds solid-propellant missiles used against Ukrainian targets, according to the document.
