EU sanctions 29 Iranians, three organisations over crackdown on protests

So far, 336 demonstrators have been killed in the unrest and nearly 15,100 detained

The European Union on Tuesday slapped additional sanctions on Iran, targeting 29 individuals and three organisations, in response to what it has condemned as Tehran's widespread use of force against peaceful protesters.

"We stand with the Iranian people and support their right to protest peacefully and voice their demands and views freely," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

The protests, triggered by the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, mark one of the boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. So far, 336 demonstrators have been killed in the unrest and nearly 15,100 detained, according to the activist HRANA news agency.

Among those sanctioned with travel bans and asset freezes are four members of the squad that arrested Amini, high-ranking members of the Revolutionary Guards and Iran's Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, according to an EU statement.

The sanctions are meant "to send a clear message to those who think they can suppress, intimidate and kill their own people without consequences," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters as she arrived for a meeting with her EU counterparts in Brussels.

"They cannot," she added. "The world, Europe is watching."

In a first round of sanctions in October, the EU imposed travel bans and asset freezes on 15 Iranian individuals and institutions linked to the young woman's death and the clamp-down on protests.