Iran threatens EU against imposing sanctions over anti-hijab protests crackdown: Report

Amid civil unrest, Iran wrote a letter to the diplomats of the European Union this week and warned that the bilateral ties between Tehran and the EU could get severely affected if the latter continues to impose sanctions over the crackdown by Iranian authorities on anti-Hijab protesters. The private letter, which was delivered to a group of EU ambassadors and was viewed by Politico, read that the bilateral relations between Iran and the EU “may not survive” if the act of penalization continues. “If Europe misses taking the nuances of the current situation into consideration, the ramification will be grave and the bilateral relations may not survive it,” the letter read.

The letter also read that penalizing Iran for the crackdown will “bear a detrimental impact on Iran-Europe relations,” which are already “at their most fragile at the moment.” It further condemned “current Iran-bashing trends in Europe”  and accused “war-mongering factions in the United States” of “stoking the fire of conflict.” Among the recipients of the letter was EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who received it from Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian. Despite the warning, the EU has decided to move forward with the sanctions, with one European diplomat telling Politico that Iran’s efforts are “lost cause” due to the EU’s “very strong unity and momentum.” 

The reason behind the sanctions on Iran

On Thursday, the EU agreed to sanction Iran over the latter’s violation of human rights following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman who died in the custody of the Islamic Republic’s morality police. Amini was arrested after allegedly wearing her Hijab improperly. Her death sparked a whirlwind of protests across the country, with hundreds of women protesting against Iran's strict regime that has resulted in decades of oppression. According to human rights groups, dozens of protesters have been killed, wounded, or arrested by Iran’s authorities. 

Last week, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told German weekly Bild am Sonntag that her country will “make sure that the EU imposes entry bans on those responsible for these brutal repressions and freezes their assets in the EU.” “Those who beat up women and girls in the streets, abduct people who want nothing more than to live freely, arbitrarily arrest them, sentence them to death, are on the wrong side of history,” she added.