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Eight Iranian military commanders and police chiefs have had sanctions imposed against them by the EU. Those sanctioned include the leader of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The move comes in the wake of Iran’s lethal response to November 2019 protests which were suppressed by the country’s security forces, resulting in deaths.

The sanctions were announced Monday in the EU’s Official Journal, reported Reuters.

The sanctions, travel bans and asset freezes, are the UE’s first human rights relations sanctions against Iran since 2013.

Those hit with sanctions include Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s elite security force.

“Hossein Salami took part in the sessions that resulted in the orders to use lethal force to suppress the November 2019 protests. Hossein Salami therefore bears responsibility for serious human rights violations in Iran,” the EU stated.

In November 2019, during two weeks of protests, Iranian security forces killed approximately 1,500 people, according to a fatality count reported by Reuters.

The Iranian government has called the death toll “fake news.”

The U.N. special envoy for human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, presented in a report that Tehran used deadly force against the protestors and accused it of failing to launch an investigation into the deaths or hold anyone to task for what occurred.

Also targeted were three Iranian prisons, whose assets will be frozen, along with the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij militia, and its leader Gholamreza Soleimani