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France seeks EU asset freeze and travel ban on Iranian officials

By RFI
France  AFPChristophe Archambault
OCT 4, 2022 LISTEN
© AFP/Christophe Archambault

France is pushing for the European Union to "target senior officials and hold them responsible for their actions" over Iran's repression of protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, foreign minister Catherine Colonna has said.

"France's action at heart of EU ... (is) to target those responsible for the crackdown by holding them responsible for their acts," Catherine Colonna told lawmakers in parliament, adding that the EU was looking at asset freezes and travel bans.

Possible sanctions
Proposed actions include "freezing their assets and their right to travel", Colonna added.

She also criticised Tehran officials who, she said,  "repress [protests] on the one hand and send many of their own children to live in the West on the other".

The EU last agreed human rights sanctions on Tehran in 2021. No Iranians had been added to that list since 2013, however, as the bloc has shied away such measures in the hope of reviving a nuclear accord with Iran after the United States withdrew in 2018. Those talks have now stalled.

It currently has an array of sanctions on about 90 Iranian individuals which have been renewed annually every April.

Citing diplomatic sources, Germany's Der Spiegel reported Monday that Paris was working with Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic on sanctions against Tehran.

EU action?
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, meanwhile, said that the EU is considering sanctions on Iran over the "killing" of Mahsa Amini and the crackdown on protests across the country.

"We will continue to consider all the options at our disposal, including restrictive measures, to address the killing of Mahsa Amini and the way Iranian security forces have been responding to the demonstrations," Borrell told the European Parliament.

He added that by "restrictive measures" he meant sanctions.

Amini, 22, was pronounced dead on 16 September, days after the morality police detained the Kurdish Iranian for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear hijab headscarves and modest clothes.

Anger over her death has sparked the biggest wave of protests to rock Iran in almost three years and a state crackdown that has seen scores of protesters killed and more than 1,000 arrested.

The unrest has overshadowed diplomatic efforts to revive a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers which had come close to a breakthrough in recent months before stalling again.

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(with AFP)

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