The United States, Britain, and the European Union have issued new sanctions on dozens of Iranian individuals and entities for Tehran's deadly crackdown on dissent following the death of a young woman while in police custody for allegedly wearing a head scarf improperly.
The sanctions, announced on January 23, include several officials linked to Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), but did not go as far as putting the military force on terror blacklists.
In Brussels, EU foreign ministers said they had agreed to impose travel bans on officials including Abbas Nilfrushan, a deputy commander in the IRGC who has led a unit that has taken a major role in quelling unrest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.
Minister of Sport and Youth Hamid Sajjadi was also placed on the list for his role in going after athletes who spoke out against repression and the authorities amid reports from rights groups that almost 500 protesters have been killed in a crackdown over the unrest, seen as one the biggest threats to the Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.
Britain said it had placed sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities over the country's "brutal repression" of its people, including a crackdown on anti-government protests and the recent execution of British-Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari.
The move freezes the assets of Deputy Prosecutor-General Ahmad Fazelian, who the British Foreign Office said was "responsible for a judicial system characterized by unfair trials and egregious punishments, including use of the death penalty for political purposes."
"Those sanctioned today, from the judicial figures using the death penalty for political ends to the thugs beating protestors on the streets, are at the heart of the regime's brutal repression of the Iranian people," British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
"The U.K. and our partners have sent a clear message through these sanctions that there will be no hiding place for those guilty of the worst human rights violations."
In Washington, the U.S. Treasury said a further 10 people had been added to its sanctions list, all of whom are linked to the IRGC or officials around it.
The unrest that has swept Iran since Amini's death on September 16 has been met with thousands of arrests by security forces and calls from lawmakers for harsh penalties.
At least four people have been executed so far in relation to the protests, while several others have been handed death sentences and are on death row.
While the sanctions once again tighten around Tehran and its leadership, EU foreign ministers debated, but did not put the IRGC on its terrorist blacklist.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who headed the meeting in Brussels, said such a designation could not be applied until a court in one of the bloc's 27 members makes a ruling against the IRGC for acts of terror.
"It is something that cannot be decided without a court decision first," he told reporters.
The bloc had already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Iranian officials for their response to the unrest.