ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United States on Wednesday sanctioned 12 Iranians it accused of carrying out “violent repression” both inside the country and abroad. The move came hand-in-hand with similar sanctions by Canada and Australia and as Tehran is receiving criticism for its human rights record two years after the Jin Jiyan Azadi protests. “Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating 12 individuals in connection with the Iranian regime’s ongoing, violent repression of the Iranian people, both within Iran’s borders and abroad,” read a statement from the treasury department. The designation includes individuals from the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), prison officials, and others responsible for “lethal operations overseas,” according to the statement. “Two years have now passed since Mahsa Amini’s tragic death in the custody of Iran’s so-called ‘Morality Police,’ and, despite the Iranian people’s peaceful calls for reform, Iran’s leaders have doubled down on the regime’s well-worn tactics of violence and coercion,” said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith. The sanctions freeze the assets of the designated officials under US jurisdiction and bar all American companies or individuals from engaging with them, and were announced two days after the second anniversary of the death of Zhina Mahsa Amini. Amini, a Kurdish woman, died while in the custody of Iran’s so-called morality police for wearing a lax hijab. Her death sparked nationwide protests known by the phrase that was chanted at demonstrations - Jin Jiyan Azadi (Woman Life Freedom). Iranian security forces unleashed a violent crackdown on protesters, killing, injuring, and arresting thousands. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday, the anniversary of Amini’s death, that authorities continue the “brutal repression of peaceful dissidents, civil society, women, and religious and ethnic minorities, while failing to hold those responsible for torture, rape, and unlawful killings accountable.” The recent election of a reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and a change in the government “have so far done nothing to alter the authorities’ repressive actions towards dissent,” said Nahid Naghshbandi, acting Iran researcher at HRW. “The authorities have failed to answer for the killing of hundreds and the arrest of thousands, and they have systematically continued their suppression of opponents, civil society, and human rights defenders,” said Naghshabandi. The rights monitor called on Iranian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally release” all women rights activists currently in prison.
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