The US stepped up pressure against Iran’s government on Wednesday, slapping financial and travel sanctions on eight Iranian officials and accusing them of taking part in rampant human rights abuses.
Under an executive order signed this week by US President Barack Obama, the State and Treasury departments jointly announced the sanctions that target Iranians who “share responsibility for the sustained and severe violation of human rights in Iran,” notably after last year’s disputed presidential elections.
At a State Department news conference, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said it was the first time the US has imposed sanctions on Iranians for violating human rights. The step adds another layer to already heavy US sanctions on Iran, which in the past have been imposed over the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“On these officials’ watch or under their command, Iranian citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, blackmailed and killed,” Clinton said. “Yet the Iranian government has ignored repeated calls from the international community to end these abuses.”
The move bars the eight Iranians from entering the US, blocks any of their US assets and prohibits Americans from doing business with them.
Although none of the eight is believed to have substantial assets in US jurisdictions, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he expects foreign financial institutions to stop doing business with them.
“We have found that when we single out individuals and expose their conduct, banks, businesses and governments around the world respond by cutting off their economic and financial dealings with these individuals, these institutions, these businesses,” Geithner said.
Among the eight Iranians targeted was Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and one his top deputies, Hossein Taeb. Jafari is already subject to US sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration said that forces under the command of Jafari and Taeb had participated in beatings, murder and arbitrary arrests of peaceful protesters in the aftermath of the Iranian elections in June last year.
Also named were Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, four current and former police chiefs and prosecutors, and Iranian Minister of Welfare and Social Security Sadeq Mahsouli.
Mahsouli was minister of the interior at the time of the elections, and in that role had authority over all police forces and Interior Ministry security agents, the administration’s announcement said.
“His forces were responsible for attacks on the dormitories of Tehran University on June 15, 2009, during which students were severely beaten and detained,” the joint statement said.
Clinton said that despite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent claims that human rights were respected and protected in Iran, the situation has worsened since the elections. She said this week alone, two reformist political parties and two newspapers were shut down.
“The steady deterioration in human rights conditions in Iran has obliged the United States to speak out time and time again,” Clinton said.
The White House portrayed the sanctions as a reflection of US efforts to support peaceful change in Iran.
“The United States will always stand with those in Iran who aspire to have their voices heard,” a White House statement said.
In related news, Japan’s top oil explorer Inpex Corp was likely to withdraw from Iran’s Azadegan oil field project, acceding to a request from the US linked to Washington’s sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program, Japanese media outlets reported.
Inpex and the Japanese government are likely to make the decision as the firm could otherwise be mentioned in a new list of Iran-related firms to be targeted for US sanctions, the Nikkei Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun said.
An Inpex spokesman said that the company has not made any decision on withdrawing from the project, and that it would consult the Japanese government on the issue.
Kyodo news agency quoted Japanese Trade Minister Akihiro Ohata as saying that Inpex was considering pulling out.
Inpex would have trouble raising funds from US financial institutions and its global development projects could be hindered if the company featured on the US list.
Earlier this month, Japan imposed additional sanctions on Iran, following the US and EuU in pressuring Tehran despite Tokyo’s reliance on oil imports from the country.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the