Police Headquarters, Attar street, Vanak Square, Tehran, Iran

The Iranian Cyber Police, founded in January 2011, is a unit of the Islamic Republic of Iran Police, which at the time of its inception until early 2015 was headed by Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam (listed). Ahmadi-Moqaddam underlined that the Cyber Police would take on anti-revolutionary and dissident groups who used internet-based social networks in 2009 to trigger protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In January 2012, the Cyber Police issued new guidelines for internet cafés, requiring users to provide personal information that would be kept by café owners for six months, as well as a record of the websites they visited. The rules also require café owners to install closed-circuit television cameras and maintain the recordings for six months. These new rules may create a logbook that authorities can use to track down activists or whoever is deemed a threat to national security. In June 2012, Iranian media reported that the Cyber Police would be launching a crackdown on virtual private networks (VPNs). On 30 October 2012, the Cyber Police arrested the blogger Sattar Beheshti without a warrant for ‘actions against national security on social networks and Facebook’. Beheshti had criticised the Iranian government in his blog. Beheshti was found dead in his prison cell on 3 November 2012, and is believed to have been tortured to death by the Cyber Police authorities.

The Director Disqualification Sanction was imposed on 09/04/2025.

2020-12-31

UK

The Iran (Sanctions) Regulations 2023

UK country specific

Iran

Asset freeze and making available provisions, Trade sanctions, Travel bans, Transport sanctions

• The Regulations impose financial sanctions through a targeted asset freeze on designated persons and prohibitions on making funds or economic resources available. This involves the freezing of funds and economic resources (non-monetary assets, such as property or vehicles) of designated persons and ensuring that funds and economic resources are not made available to or for the benefit of designated persons, either directly or indirectly. • The effect of the Regulations is to impose a travel ban on persons who are designated by the Secretary of State for the purposes of being made subject to immigration sanctions under the Sanctions Act. Such persons are excluded persons for the purposes of section 8B of the Immigration Act 1971. • Trade sanctions. • Transport sanctions.

Iran (Sanctions) Regulations 2023 came fully into force on 14 December 2023. The regime’s purposes are to deter the Government of Iran or an armed group backed by the Government of Iran from conducting hostile activity against the United Kingdom or any other country and to encourage the Government of Iran to comply with international human rights law and to respect human rights. These regulations have replaced The Iran (Sanctions) (Human Rights) (EU Exit) Sanctions 2019 Those persons who are designated under this regime are included on the UK sanctions list. The UK also implements a sanctions regime on Iran related to nuclear weapons.

Licensing and exception provisions are contained in Part 8 of the Regulations.