Europe-Iran Tensions Grow As EU Foreign Ministers Gather

During this period, Khamenei has made it clear at least twice that he wants the protests to be crushed and protesters punished heavy-handedly. Although a few officials including Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Mashhad Friday prayers Imam Ahmad Alamolhoda have echoed Khamenei’s call for violent crackdown, several politicians including one government minister, a senior aide, and several lawmakers and former state officials have pointed out that the regime needs to make compromises on some of its values in order to peacefully curb the dissent.

Khamenei’s senior aide Ali Larijani, a former speaker of the Iranian parliament, said in an October 12 interview with Ettela’at Newspaper, which is owned and maintained by Khamenei’s office, that the regime’s “insistence on its social values will elicit violent reactions on the part of the protesters.” Quoting another state official as saying that more than 50 percent of Iranian women do not observe the government-imposed dress code, Larijani said: “When a behavior is so widely prevalent in the society it is wrong to involve the police in a bid to curb that behavior.”

Meanwhile on October 11, referring to the government and Iranian hard-liners’ attempt to impose a rekigious lifestyle on modern Iranian women, Tourism Minister Ezzatollah Zarghami asked in a tweet that “what should the people do if they do not wish to be guided by the morality police?”

100%

On Friday, Khamenei’s representative and the Friday prayers imam of Mashhad, accused the critics, including the minister, of undermining the holy Koran and Iran’s constitutional law. He also accused the protesters of not believing in God and his prophet; an accusation that could entail the death sentence for the protesters.

On the same day, Iranian lawmaker, Gholamreza Montazeri, who is the deputy chairman of the Cultural Committee of the Iranian parliament, expressed his opposition to a violent crackdown on protests and called for understanding the new generation which comprises a majority of protesters.

However, instead of addressing Khamenei, which could have endangered his position as a lawmaker, he chose to address the Interior Minister who had echoed Khamenei’s statement. He said: “If you deprive Iranian protestors of voicing their criticism of the system, they will turn to strangers and talk to them.”

Earlier in this week, former labor minister Ali Rabiei and former presidential chief of staff Mohamad Ali Abtahi warned the government, and in fact Khamenei, that “if the dissatisfactions are not addressed properly, dissent will remain active and sooner or later it will find its way into the streets.” They added that "the world is listening to the voice of Iranians' protest and stressed that this voice should be also heard inside Iran."

On Thursday, the editor of Jomhouri Eslami newspaper, Masih Mohajeri and senior cleric Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli called on the government, as they too shied away from addressing Khamenei for fear of repression, to understand the protesters and the causes of dissent and bring about changes that would make the government efficient in dealing with the country’s problems.

However, regardless of all the criticism and advice from regime insiders, Khamenei finds it hard to listen to anyone. Earlier this week, when Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei called for a dialogue between the government and the protesters, he was forced in less than a day to change his words and order the courts of law under his jurisdiction to deal with protesters with utmost firmness and not to ignore the slightest wrongdoing.

In a phone call with Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs João Gomes Cravinho, Amir-Abdollahian criticized the “interventionist” statements and measures by other countries, saying that they provoke people and instigate unrest in Iran. 

He claimed that some countries consider “riots and terrorist activities” as a form of protest, denouncing the move by European countries that put the issue of additional resolutions or sanctions on the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the Council of Ministers of the European Union.

Despite numerous reports by the Ukrainian military about the use of the Iranian drones by the Russian forces, Amir-Abdollahian repeated claims that “The Islamic Republic of Iran has not and will not provide any weapon to be used in the Ukraine war.”

According to unconfirmed reports, the EU is set to sanction four entities and 11 high-ranking Iranian military and security officials for their roles in the repression of the uprising, ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

During a phone conversation with Amir-Abdollahian on Friday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell urged the Islamic Republic to stop the repression of protesters and to release those detained since the uprising began in mid-September.

A senior EU official said Friday that the EU foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Monday also to discuss the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia, noting that the ministers will not take any decisions on additional Iran sanctions but could reach a political agreement on future sanctions linked to a transfer of drones.

Despite reports that Tehran is sending out letters to EU diplomats, claiming that "bilateral relations may not survive" as the EU moves to penalize Iran for killing protesters, the uprising is garnering more and more support among Western government officials and politicians.

Joe Biden, visiting a college in Irvine, California said he is “stunned” by the popular protests and that the US stands with Iran’s “brave women”.

As a group of protesters were standing with “Free Iran” signs, the President said, “I want you to know that we stand with the citizens, the brave women of Iran.” He continued, “It stunned me what it awakened in Iran. It awakened something that I don’t think will be quieted for a long, long time.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington DC also met separately with Iranian civil society activists based abroad, earlier in the day.

Three Iranian women led by Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born British actress and activist, met with Blinken and other State Department officials to discuss how the United States can support Iranians who have been protesting for more than four weeks.

After the meeting, Blinken tweeted, “Today, I met with civil society partners to discuss what more the U.S. can do to support the people of Iran, particularly its brave women and girls.”

Boniadi in reply tweeted, “I am encouraged by your openness to hearing the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran and we look forward to engaging on next steps to support Iranian civil society to that end.”

The Biden Administration had focused on reviving the Obama-era nuclear deal known as the JCPOA since assuming office, but almost 18 months of indirect talks with Tehran failed to produce an agreement when the protests began in mid-September after Mahsa Amini, a young woman was killed in ‘morality’ police custody.

Iranians living abroad, particularly in the United States were outraged and began to campaign for world attention to Amini’s case, which symbolized the degree of human rights abuses perpetrated by the Islamic Republic’s clerical-military regime. Mahsa Amini’s hashtag on Twitter quickly took off as no other issue before, reaching hundreds of millions of responses.

The administration’s first response was relatively quick, sanctioning Iran’s ‘morality police’ and listing seven senior officials one week after Amini’s death and a few days after large protests broke out. It also moved to ease restrictions on Internet-related technology for Iranians as the government often shut off access to control flow of information about the protests.

But a question lingered in the minds of many Iranians about the administration’s policy to return to the nuclear deal that former President Donald Trump had abandoned in 2018 and imposed heavy economic sanctions on Tehran. Although talks are in deadlock, a potential new deal would release tens of billions of dollars to the authoritarian government that it can use to suppress its people, particularly women.

The administration came up with a new position this week, saying it is not “focused” on reviving the JCPOA, and its attention is on the protests. Friday’s meetings with Iranian activists followed that apparent shift in its Iran policy.

But many Iranians have been demanding a clear break with the nuclear talks that would forestall any lifting of sanctions and release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds in foreign banks.

In a tweet on Friday, the top EU diplomat said he spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, conveying to him “EU's clear and united position: people in Iran have the right to peaceful protest and to defend fundamental rights.”

"Violent repression must stop immediately. Protesters must be released. Internet access and accountability are needed," he added.

According to unconfirmed reports, the EU is set to sanction four entities and 11 high-ranking Iranian military and security officials for their roles in the repression of the uprising, ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. 

Also on Friday, a senior EU official said the EU foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia, noting that the ministers will not take any decisions on additional Iran sanctions but could reach a political agreement on future sanctions linked to a transfer of drones. 

Despite numerous reports by the Ukrainian military about the use of the Iranian drones by the Russian forces, the 27-nation bloc is still trying to find independent evidence for the use of Tehran-supplied drones in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the official added. 

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on October 10, Russia had used Iran-made drones to attack dozens of civilian targets in Ukraine. The Ukrainian military claimed on October 8 that Russia has sent Iranian military drones to Belarus for possible attacks in western or central parts of Ukraine.

The foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that additional sanctions were imposed under the Special Economic Measures Regulations in response to the government's human rights abuses and destabilizing actions.

Former Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was in the new list as well as former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, Khamenei's representative in Kayhan Hossein Shariatmadari, former president Hassan Rouhani's defense minister Amir Hatami, the current state broadcaster chief Peyman Jebelli and former parliament speaker Ali Larijani.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said, “The actions of the Iranian regime speak for themselves – the world has watched for years as it has pursued its agenda of violence, fear and propaganda," adding that "Canada will continue to defend human rights and we will continue to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people, including women and youth, who are courageously demanding a future where their human rights will be fully respected."

On October 3, Canada slapped sanctions on 34 Iranian officials and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and morality police, over the crackdown on current protests, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died while in custody of Iran's "morality” police.