The Trump administration hit Iran with sanctions over human rights abuses and censorship Wednesday, the latest in a series of fresh economic penalties that will compound those related to the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Wednesday’s sanctions come in the wake of political and economic protests in Iran that have continued in the months since December’s widespread upheaval. “America stands with the people of Iran, and Treasury is taking action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for ongoing human rights abuses, censorship, and other despicable acts it commits against its own citizens,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Treasury designated Ansar-e Hezbollah and three of its founders, an organization supported by the Iranian regime that has helped violently suppress Iranian citizens. The group has been linked to a series of acid attacks in Isfahan against women who “were not dressed in accordance with the regime’s standards.” Iran’s infamous Evin Prison was also sanctioned over its brutal abuses.
“Iran not only exports terrorism and instability across the world, it routinely violates the rights of its own people,” Mnuchin said Wednesday. “The Iranian regime diverts national resources that should belong to the people to fund a massive and expensive censorship apparatus and suppress free speech.”
The department penalized several entities for engaging in censorship. That includes the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), a state-run media organization that has aired political detainees’ forced confessions. It also includes Abolhassan Firouzabadi, an Iranian official “responsible for the Iranian government’s efforts to block social media applications like Telegram and to force Iranians to use state-run applications that are monitored by the regime.” In the same vein, Treasury designated Hanista Programming Group, which developed malicious alternatives to Telegram “that facilitate the Iranian regime’s monitoring and tracking of Iranian and international users.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo castigated the Iranian regime last week for using sanctions relief from the 2015 nuclear deal to fuel adventurism across the Middle East rather than help its people. The Iranian people, he said, should consider that the regime is directly responsible for their economic hardships.
“Rouhani and Zarif are your elected leaders. Are they not the most responsible for your economic struggles? Are these two not responsible for wasting Iranian lives throughout the Middle East?” he said. “It’s worth the Iranian people considering, because instead of helping their own citizens, the regime continues to seek a corridor stretching from Iran’s borders to the shores of the Mediterranean.”
Wednesday’s penalties are intended to reaffirm U.S. support for the Iranian people, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“These designations come at a time of increased labor strikes and sporadic protests against the Islamic Republic,” he said. The penalties will also likely function as leverage in talks with America’s European allies, who have said they will stay in the 2015 nuclear deal and try to keep economic benefits flowing to Tehran despite impending U.S. secondary sanctions.
“These sanctions and their pace will likely be used as leverage in talks with Europe to address Iran’s malign non-nuclear behavior,” said Taleblu. “The U.S. will say, ‘We’ve designated these persons and entities. They’re subject to secondary sanctions, and if you’re a foreign financial institution that facilitates transactions for these people or provides material support for them, we could also go after you on the same authority.’ It’s a polite way of saying to Europe: ‘check yourself.’ The goal is to deter future business as Europe wants to keep the nuclear deal.”
He added: “These designations, hopefully coupled with many more, should constitute the building blocks of a more comprehensive Iran policy that will address human rights.”
U.S. persons are generally forbidden from doing business with the entities blacklisted on Wednesday, and any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates significant transactions on their behalf risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system.
Despite European efforts to protect firms doing business in Iran, several companies have said they will be ending their business there to avoid the effects of impending U.S. sanctions.
