Two members of Iran’s government and 30 other people have been subject to European Union sanctions since yesterday Monday for the deadly suppression of mass demonstrations in the country since September, which thousands of participants in a gathering of the Iranian opposition in Brussels complained.

The EU has decided to freeze any funds in its jurisdiction and bar entry to officials of the Iranian state apparatus involved in fundamental rights abuses during the crackdown on protests following the death on 16 September of Makhsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman Iranian, who had been arrested by the morality police for violating the strict dress code for women in the Islamic Republic.

European foreign ministers sanctioned Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaili, Education Minister Youssef Nouri, parliamentary, prosecutorial and judicial officials, as well as the director of a women’s prison accused of brutality. The EU blacklist now includes almost 200 names of individuals and 33 names of legal entities.

Over 6,000 people, Brussels police estimated, took part in a rally against the Iranian regime during the council of European foreign ministers.

They held placards with slogans such as “woman, life, freedom,” while others held imperial-era flags and portraits of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution. Speakers included US-based journalist and activist Massey Alinezad, figure of the anti-headscarf movement.

EU sanctions were imposed to hold accountable those responsible for violations of the rights of women and young people who simply “want to live freely,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock summed up.

However, Ms Burbock noted that EU legal experts have ruled that there is no “legal basis” to designate the Revolutionary Guards – an elite force of the Islamic Republic’s army – a “terrorist organisation”, at least “so far”.