Because of the brutal actions of Iranian security forces against demonstrators, Great Britain has imposed sanctions on those responsible. Tehran reacted immediately and summoned the British ambassador.
The measures were aimed at the vice squad and five leading politicians and security officials, the Foreign Office said in London on Monday. The reason is serious human rights violations. Those convicted are now no longer allowed to enter the UK, and any possessions in the UK are frozen.
Morality police are blamed for the death in mid-September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who arrested her for allegedly wearing an “un-Islamic outfit”. Since then, thousands have been demonstrating across the country against the government’s repressive course and the compulsory headscarf.
“The UK stands with the Iranian people who are boldly holding their government to account and demanding respect for their fundamental human rights,” said British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. “These sanctions send a clear message to the Iranian authorities: we will hold you accountable for your oppression of women and girls and for the shocking violence you inflict on your own people.”
For decades, the vice squad has controlled what Iranian women wear and how they behave in public, under threat of imprisonment and violence. The sanctions were therefore directed against the so-called morality police as a whole, as well as against their boss Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi and their head in the capital Tehran, Haj Ahmed Mirzaei. Several high-ranking police officers would also be punished.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador to Tehran on Monday evening. Iran condemns both London’s interference in the country’s internal affairs and the sanctions, according to the Foreign Ministry’s web portal. It is the third time in the past three weeks that the British ambassador has been summoned in connection with the system-critical protests. The country’s leadership portrays the protests as a conspiracy by the “enemies of Iran”. The aim is therefore to weaken the Islamic system.
The German government’s migration commissioner, Reem Alabali-Radovan, has spoken out in favor of stopping deportations to Iran. She told the editorial network Germany (RND): “I support the proposal by Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius, who has put a deportation stop on the agenda for the next interior ministers’ conference. Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and other federal states have already decided not to deport to a country whose regime arbitrarily kills peaceful demonstrators.”