EU Lawmakers Call for Stronger Action on Rights Violations in Iran

The European Parliament has called on EU member states to initiate criminal investigations into Iranian officials responsible for serious human rights violations, and to facilitate visas, asylum and emergency grants for people fleeing the country.

In a resolution adopted on February 8, the EU lawmakers reiterated their call on the European Council to designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and to impose additional sanctions on officials and entities involved in rights violations, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi and Prosecutor-General Mohammad Movahedi Azad.

Strongly condemning the executions of peaceful demonstrators in Iran, the MEPs urged the Islamic Republic to commute all death sentences and abolish the death penalty. 

Parliament wants “the unconditional and immediate release of everyone arbitrarily on death row and all prisoners of conscience,” the non-binding resolution also reads.

The text condemns the Islamic Republic’s use of “hostage diplomacy as a foreign policy tool,” and calls for “a new and bold EU strategy on Iran” to counter it.

The Iranian authorities’ crackdown on civil society and any form of dissent has continued unabated since the country was rocked by months of anti-establishment protests in 2022-23.

More than 500 people were killed and over 22,000 others were unlawfully detained in the clampdown on the Woman, Life Freedom protest movement, activists say. 

The authorities are increasingly using the death penalty to instill fear into society, with more than 800 executed last year, including eight people associated with the uprising.