The Trump administration on Friday imposed sanctions on Iran’s interior minister, Eskandar Momeni, tying him to the crackdown on protests that have challenged Tehran’s theocratic government. The measures were announced as additional steps by both the United States and the European Union toward high-ranking Iranian figures accused of role in repression and arrests, with unrest that began in late December later broadening into a wider challenge.
The U.S. government said Momeni has overseen Iran’s law enforcement forces responsible for deaths among protesters, according to the Associated Press report. Those sanctions are part of a broader campaign aimed at officials and networks the United States says support and enable the crackdown, the AP said.
The European Union followed a similar path on Thursday, imposing sanctions against Momeni and other high-ranking officers and members of Iran’s judicial system. The AP said the EU described those individuals as involved in rights abuses during the protest crackdown and said they were responsible for “violent repression of peaceful protests” and the “arbitrary arrest of political activists and human rights defenders,” according to the EU.
The unrest has unfolded since late December, when economic woes helped spark the protests before they widened, the AP reported. Activists cited by the report said the crackdown that followed had killed more than 6,000 people, while Iranian officials and state media have repeatedly referred to the demonstrators as “terrorists,” the AP said.
U.S. sanctions were not limited to Momeni. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets also imposed sanctions on Babak Morteza Zanjani, an Iranian investor accused of embezzling billions of dollars in Iranian oil revenue for the benefit of the Iranian government, according to the Associated Press. The Treasury also penalized two digital asset exchanges linked to Zanjani that the AP said processed large volumes of funds.
In addition, the AP reported that the U.S. sanctions deny sanctioned people and firms access to property or financial assets held in the United States, limit travel to America, and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them. The AP also said the Treasury described the actions as targeting Iranian networks and officials it said enrich themselves at the expense of the Iranian people.
At the same time, the AP reported that the EU has agreed to list Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, a move described as largely symbolic but intended to increase pressure on Tehran. In response, Iran was considering retaliation through a broader terrorist designation affecting European states’ militaries, the AP said—pointing to a post Friday on X by Ali Larijani, who said the Iranian parliament was expected to pass the measure Sunday.
The latest U.S. sanctions also included other officials and entities beyond the interior minister, the AP reported. It said a prior set targeted the secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security, accusing the official of calling for violence against protesters early in the crackdown, and it also said penalties targeted a group of 18 people and companies accused of laundering money from sales of Iranian oil to foreign markets as part of a shadow banking network of sanctioned institutions.
Even as governments moved to impose new financial and travel penalties, the Associated Press report described uncertainty about how the steps will affect negotiations or diplomacy. The EU did not immediately comment, the AP said.