Iran on Wednesday announced new sanctions against 25 people and entities from the European Union and nine from the United Kingdom in response to sanctions imposed last Monday. Tehran accuses these people and organizations of “supporting terrorism and terrorist groups (…), violence against the Iranian people” or “spreading false information about Iran,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
Iran warned on Tuesday that it would take countermeasures in response to new sanctions decided in Brussels and London the day before, more than four months after disputes over Mahsa Amini’s death began. The EU foreign ministers have added 37 Iranian individuals or organizations to their sanctions list for human rights violations. The British added five people and two organizations to their list.
Anne Hidalgo, BHL and Charlie Hebdo
Eight French people are on the new list of Iranian sanctions, including socialist mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and ex-elected Gilbert Mitterrand, son of former President François Mitterrand. Also targeted are three managers from Charlie Hebdo, the magazine that was already an entity on the previous sanctions list. The satirical newspaper angered Tehran in early January by publishing cartoons of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
France-based Radio J and the European Friends of Israel (EFI) group are among the three targets. The list also includes the names of six MPs, two former MEPs, as well as Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist Rasmus Paludan, who burned a copy of the Koran in Sweden on Saturday, sparking fierce protests in Ankara and several capitals across the Muslim world.