ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The UK on Monday vowed to take more action against Iran following its “cowardly and shameful” execution of dual Iranian-British national Alireza Akbari.
“Our message to that regime is clear - the world is watching you and you will be held to account, particularly by the brave Iranian people,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in the House of Commons.
Akbari, an ex-deputy defense minister in Iran, was hanged on Saturday after being charged for spying for the UK’s intelligence agency. His death is the latest in a series of executions carried out by the regime over protests and alleged espionage.
In a strongly-worded speech vowing further reprisals, Cleverly said the executions “were vengeful actions of a weakened and isolated regime obsessed with suppressing its own people, debilitated by its own fear of losing power.”
In response to Akbari’s execution, the UK summoned Iran’s charges d’affaires and recalled its own ambassador from Tehran for consultations.
Britain also imposed sanctions on Iran’s prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri but did not list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, despite demands from parliament to do so.
Cleverly stated that in the last three months, the UK imposed three separate packages of sanctions targeting over 300 individuals and entities. “We do not limit ourselves to the steps that I have already announced,” he added.
The Iranian regime has been confronting an unprecedented wave of domestic protests following the death of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini in September. At least 524 people have been killed in the violent crackdown by security forces on protesters while over 19,000 are said to be arrested, according to the latest tally by US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
“Britain stands with the brave and dignified people of Iran,” Cleverly said with regards to the protests.
There are a number of dual and foreign nationals being held in Iranian prisons on charges of spying for foreign governments with rights groups accusing Tehran of using them as bargaining chips to gain concessions from world powers.
In its annual world report on global rights conditions published on Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) slammed Iran for conducting unfair trials and obtaining confessions under duress, as well as for charges brought against dual nationals.
