The European Parliament has severed ties with Iran following last month's decision by Tehran to issue sanctions against six MEPs.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola told Monday's opening of the parliament’s November plenary session in Strasbourg that there would be "no direct contact" between the body's delegations and committees and their Iranian counterparts.
The situation would continue "until further notice," she added.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused six MEPs, two French politicians, as well as several European media outlets, chemical companies and NGOs of inciting terrorism and violence in the country.
Tehran claimed this had led to “rioting, violence, acts of terror and violations of human rights against the Iranian nation”.
The six MEPs sanctioned are Javier Zarzalejos, Milan Azver, Charlie Weimers, Jan Zahradil, Helmut Geuking and Hermann Tertsch.
Mr Zarzalejos, from Spain, told The National that "he could not care less" about the sanctions, which trigger a travel ban to Iran, and hailed Ms Metsola for protecting "a democratic Parliament its members."
Mr Weimers said that he believed he had been sanctioned because he had "openly spoken the truth about the regime since becoming an MEP in 2019: the Islamic Republic is an evil republic."
He said that the European Parliament's decision to cut ties with Iran was a good first step but that more needed to be done.
"The European Parliament needs to: block any entry of Iranian officials to the European Parliament; cancel the foreign affairs committee's mission to Iran and not put it up for reassessment for the second half of 2023; and in light of Iran’s support for terrorism consider a security protocol for the sanctioned MEPs," said Mr Weimers, a Swedish politician.
Iran's sanctions are widely viewed as a retaliatory move for those issued by Brussels on October 17 against 15 Iranian individuals and institutions — including the regime's morality police — aimed at punishing the Iranian government for its bloody repression of protesters.
Mr Geuking, a German politician, said that the fact that Tehran targeted him and other MEPs showed that EU sanctions were working.
"This shows that our voices in Europe are likely to be heard and have an impact," he said.
"Our thoughts in Europe are always with the many people who rebel against injustice, murder, torture or state terrorism," he added.
So far, 336 demonstrators have been killed in the unrest in Iran and nearly 15,100 detained, according to the activist Human Rights Activists News Agency. The riots were triggered by the death in police custody of a 22-year-old woman in September.
The EU earlier this month issued a second round of sanctions against 32 Iranian entities and individuals.
Those under sanction have been hit by a travel ban that prevents them from entering the EU, and institutions are subject to frozen assets. EU citizens and companies are forbidden from making funds available to them.
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
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A general guide to how active you are:
Less than 5,000 steps - sedentary
5,000 - 9,999 steps - lightly active
10,000 - 12,500 steps - active
12,500 - highly active
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match info
Manchester United 3 (Martial 7', 44', 74')
Sheffield United 0
Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
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Hunting park to luxury living
- Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
