Britain on Thursday announced new sanctions against Iran and a new regime that gives it more powers to target Iranians who make decisions about their “hostile actions” in the UK or abroad.

An unprecedented protest movement, which was suppressed, erupted in Iran following the death in custody in September 2022 of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsha Amini, after she was arrested by the morality police on charges of violating the strict dress code imposed by for women to wear headscarves in the Islamic Republic.

Since then, “the Iranian regime has dramatically increased its efforts to silence the dissent movement, which has never been confined to Iranian territory,” said British Foreign Minister James Cleverley.

Tehran’s reaction was not long in coming. Britain’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran was summoned to Iran’s foreign ministry on the same day to protest “catastrophic actions” following London’s announcement of new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Iran’s official Irna news agency reported.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley yesterday announced a new sanctions regime that will give London more power to target Iranians who make decisions about their “hostile activities” in the UK and around the world.

“In response to the destructive and intrusive actions and statements of the United Kingdom, Isabel March, chargé d’affaires of the British embassy in Tehran, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” according to Irna.

The ministry “considered the statements and positions of the British authorities as well as the recent sanctions (…) as an illegal and intrusive action,” the news agency added.

Britain’s new sanctions regime introduces new criteria under which persons and entities can be targeted, notably the regime’s “activities that undermine peace, stability and security in the Middle East and globally”, “the use and proliferation of Iranian weapons and weapons technologies.

These sanctions are in addition to those already received by London for the repression by Iranian security forces of the protests that followed the death, in September 2022, of Mahsha Amini. The United States and the European Union have also strengthened their sanctions against the Islamic Republic.