Iran condemns EU and UK for ‘violating human rights’

Iran announced on Tuesday it would respond to EU and UK sanctions, vowing to target entities in the West that “violate human rights”. 

Tehran said it “strongly condemned” new sanctions imposed by Brussels and London over the weekend in response to the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters. 

It warned retaliatory measures would soon follow. 

“The Islamic Republic will soon announce a list of new sanctions against the human rights violators of EU and England,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a statement.

“The action of the European Union and the British regime is a sign of their mental inability to properly understand the realities of Iran,” Kanaani was quoted as saying by the Iranian news agency IMNA. 

“They are against the authorities of the Islamic Republic,” he added. 

The EU slapped sanctions on more than 30 Iranian officials and organisations, including units of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, blaming them for a “brutal” crackdown on unrest and other human rights abuses.

The US and UK also issued new sanctions against Iran, reflecting a deterioration in the West’s already dire relations with Tehran.

The sanctions are the latest response to Iran’s deadly clampdown on unrest, sparked by the death of young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in morality police custody in September.

Four months after the start of anti-government unrest, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, says 516 protesters have been killed, including 70 children.

The latest figures from the group put the number of people arrested at more than 19,200, among them 687 students.