The EU countries imposed new sanctions on Iran on Monday.

It is about holding those responsible for "the brutal crimes against women, young people and men" accountable, said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) at the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

A total of eleven individuals and four organizations have been added to the long-standing sanctions lists.

Among them are the information minister of the mullah regime and several heads of security organs.

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Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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Markus Wehner

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The Iranian moral police were listed as an organization, their national head Mohammad Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi and Haj Ahmad Mirzaei, who is responsible for Tehran.

The Vice Police is a special unit of the police force tasked with enforcing strict dress codes for women.

"The Vice Police have used unlawful violence against women for violating Iran's hijab laws, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and excessive force and torture," the EU Council said in its decision.

Baerbock: moral police is "nonsense"

He specifically referred to the "arbitrary" arrest of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 13;

the woman was hospitalized shortly thereafter and died.

According to witnesses and credible reports, she was "violently beaten and ill-treated in custody".

Her death sparked a wave of protests across the country.

Baerbock, who had advocated sanctions early on, said on Monday that the term vice police is actually a "nonsense" "when you see what crimes are being committed there".

Women who only wanted to live their freedom would be "beaten up in Iran, some killed".

Also listed was the Basij militia, which brutally suppressed protests in the country, with several people already losing their lives.

"If this regime continues to hit its people like this, then there will be further packages of sanctions targeted at those responsible." Several foreign ministers also threatened sanctions if reports were confirmed that Iran had supplied so-called kamikaze drones to Russia, which had been in use for several weeks used in Ukraine.

"Then it will no longer be about sanctioning individuals," said Jean Asselborn from Luxembourg.

Don't break off the nuclear talks

A move by SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken to end the nuclear talks with Iran was apparently not agreed with the federal government.

Esken had told ZDF that in view of the brutal suppression of anti-government protests, "the talks must end".

In the SPD, it was made clear that the party leader had pushed ahead with this demand.

From government circles it can be heard that the Federal Chancellor would not raise this demand.

It is questionable whether the regime in Iran would see a break in the talks as punishment.

SPD foreign policy expert Nils Schmid told ZDF that breaking off the talks had nothing to do with responsible foreign policy.

A nuclear-armed Iran would directly endanger Israel's security and threaten regional stability.

Jürgen Trittin and Lamya Kaddor (both Green) warned against canceling the talks.

It would clear the way for the mullah regime to have the atomic bomb.

"The failure of the agreement would be an immense threat to the security of the entire region and to the detriment of the Iranian people," they said.

A nuclear-strengthened Iran under an inhuman regime would “play another means of repressive politics into the hands of the reactionary forces”.

An Iran without a nuclear bomb, on the other hand, could "help prevent an escalating spiral of violence in the Middle East".