There will be “no impunity for the perpetrators” of the crackdown in Iran, France’s foreign minister vowed on Friday, as the European Union readies new sanctions against Tehran.
“The President of the European Commission has launched a designation process that will lead to those responsible for this repression being targeted by EU sanctions,” Jean-Noel Barrot told journalists in Belgrade.
“We will contribute to this work.”
Barrot said France made its position clear at Thursday’s UN Security Council meeting and would also continue to discuss further “consequences” at international forums.
“We stressed that the indiscriminate state violence unleashed on demonstrators was unacceptable, intolerable, and inhumane, and that there would be absolutely no impunity for the perpetrators of this repression, which is the most violent in Iran’s contemporary history,” he added.
Launched on December 28, the protest movement in Iran had grown considerably last week. Rights groups say the country’s authorities cut off the internet so it could suppress that movement without it being documented online.
In recent days however, accounts have poured in of the violence suffered by protesters.
According to Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), at least 3,428 people have been killed by Iranian security forces since the start of the movement — a figure it says may be just a fraction of the real toll.
Thousands of others have been arrested at recent demonstrations — around 3,000 people, according to one Iranian media outlet.
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