Iranian state media reported that the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs told the British ambassador that the sanctions imposed by the UK “are distorted and have no value for the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The ambassador was also informed that Iran “reserves its right to take countermeasures,” state media added.
The British ambassador was summoned after the UK on Monday sanctioned Iran’s morality police and a number of security officials following weeks of violent crackdown by the Iranian regime on protests triggered by the controversial death of a Kurdish woman in police custody.
“For decades the Morality Police have used the threat of detention and violence to control what Iranian women wear and how they behave in public,” read a statement from the UK government, adding that the UK has “sanctioned the Morality Police in its entirety, as well as both its chief Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi and the Head of the Tehran Division Haj Ahmed Mirzaei.”
The statement added that the British government has sanctioned a number of Iranian security officials such as the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Basij force, the Commander of the NAJA Special Forces Unit of the Iranian police, and the commander-in-chief of Iranian police, for committing “serious human rights violations”.
The sanctions by the UK came two days after Canada said they would utilize the most powerful provision of its immigration and refugee protection act to formally make 10,000 officers and senior members of the Iranian regime “inadmissible to Canada for their engagement in terrorism and systemic and gross human rights violations.”
This comes as thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in country-wide protests stemming from the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a Kurdish woman after her arrest by the country’s so-called morality police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code. The demonstrations have triggered a violent crackdown by Iranian authorities.
The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization (IHR) said on Friday that at least 185 people have been killed during the demonstrations.
_(1).webp&w=3840&q=75)