BRUSSELS, 16th March, 2026 (WAM) -- The Council of the European Union today, March 16, decided to impose restrictive measures on an additional 16 individuals and 3 entities responsible for serious human rights violations in Iran.

Today's listings target a diverse group of individuals and entities that played a key role in the suppression of street protests in January 2026, which resulted in thousands of civilian casualties.

The Council is imposing sanctions on Iran's Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement, as well as several local commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directly involved in the violent crackdown on protests.

In addition, the Council listed the corps responsible for coordinating IRGC and Basij forces in Tehran, and the Imam Reza Corps, the IRGC local branch in Khorasan Razavi province, where the crackdown against protests was particularly brutal.

Furthermore, the Council today published the names of members of the judiciary who participated in trials against peaceful protesters, civil and social activists, including women's rights activists, as well as journalists and political activists critical of the authorities. Some of these individuals are responsible for extracting forced confessions, violating fair trial guarantees, and issuing harsh sentences against peaceful activists.

The list includes the Head of the Prisons, Security and Educational Measures Organisation of Iran, under whose tenure grave human rights violations have been documented across Iranian prisons. These violations include torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including the execution of juvenile offenders, arbitrary detention and physical abuse of political opponents and individuals belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, and instances of sexual violence and coercion against female prisoners.

Sanctions are also being imposed on Naji Research and Development Company (NRDC), an Iranian IT services and consultancy company responsible for developing the "Nazer" mobile application used by the Iranian Law Enforcement Forces as a surveillance tool to monitor and control citizens, and on the Head of the Tehran Cyber Police, which plays a key role in internet filtering, censorship, control of social media content, and the unjust prosecution of citizens in relation to digital content.

Restrictive measures under the regime applied to serious human rights violations in Iran now apply to 263 individuals and 53 entities. These measures consist of an asset freeze, a travel ban to the EU and a prohibition on making funds or economic resources available to those listed. A ban on exports to Iran of equipment which might be used for internal repression and of equipment for monitoring telecommunications is also in place.

The relevant legal acts have been published in the Official Journal of the EU.