Freeze money, stop travel
Paris wants EU-wide sanctions against mullahs
10/04/2022 7:41 p.m
The regime in Tehran has been suppressing protests in its own country with increasing brutality for almost three weeks. France proposes EU-wide sanctions against the corrupt power elite. The US is also announcing punishments against the mullahs.
Against the background of Iran’s violent crackdown on protests in the country, the French government is pushing for an EU-wide freeze on the assets of Iranian leaders. It is about measures that “can affect the decision-makers of the regime in Iran,” said Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna at a question time before the National Assembly in Paris. In particular, “possessions should be frozen and freedom of travel suspended”.
On Monday, the “Spiegel” reported that France, along with Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic, had submitted proposals for new EU sanctions against Iran. These should concern 16 individuals, organizations or bodies. It is primarily about “representatives of the Iranian repressive apparatus” and “political representatives”, as the “Spiegel” further reported. The countries involved want the foreign ministers of the 27 EU countries to decide on new punitive measures at their meeting on October 17 in Luxembourg. Resistance from other EU countries is not expected.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on Twitter last Thursday that she was doing “everything within the EU to introduce sanctions against those in Iran who beat women to death and shoot demonstrators in the name of religion.” The USA had already announced further sanctions against Tehran, without giving any details.
Richest Iranian: Revolutionary leader Khamenei
One of the richest people in Iran’s power elite is revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei. Referring to a Reuters research, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reported that Khamenei owns a fund called Setad, which is based on the expropriation of real estate and was worth around $95 billion in 2013. According to the FAZ, the fund is likely to be much larger today. It has not been proven that Khamenei uses the money personally, but he can use the money as he pleases at any time – whether for the Revolutionary Guards or for foreign policy maneuvers in Syria, Lebanon or Iraq.
Since the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who was previously arrested by the Iranian moral police, numerous people in Iran have been protesting. Security forces sometimes use violence against the protesters. At least 92 people have been killed in Iran since the protests began around two weeks ago, according to the Oslo-based human rights organization Iran Human Rights (IHR).
The young Kurdish woman Amini was arrested in Tehran on September 13 – apparently on the grounds that she had not worn the Islamic headscarf in accordance with the rules. After her arrest, Amini collapsed under mysterious circumstances at the police station and was pronounced dead at the hospital three days later. According to activists, she is said to have been beaten by the police and died as a result.