Iranian Human Rights Violators Hit with Fresh US Sanctions

Police units, IRGC commanders and local governors in Iran have been hit by a cascade of new sanctions from the US Treasury for the violent suppression of peaceful protests and mistreatment of political prisoners.

In a dispatch on Tuesday, December 7, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced it was designating 15 individuals and entities in Iran, Syria and Uganda under the country’s Magnitsky Act, which allows the perpetrators of gross human rights abuses to be subject to targeted sanctions.

In a statement, OFAC said all the newly-designated parties had engaged in acts that “undermine[d] democracy”. Director Andrea M. Gacki added: “The Treasury will continue to defend against authoritarianism, promoting accountability for the violent repression of people seeking to exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The sanctions mean any assets or property in the US owned by these 15 actors will be subject to an instant asset freeze, along with any entity in which they hold a 50 percent share or more. US citizens and businesses, and those transiting the US, are barred from engaging in any transactions with them without OFAC’s permission.

Police and Local Commanders Sanctioned for Protest Killings

First on the list were the police’s “anti-riot” NAJA special forces unit together with its commander, Hassan Karami, as well as the supposed counter-terror unit NOPO and NOPO commander Mohsen Ebrahimi. Both played a documented role in the lethal crackdown on civilian protests in Iran after the 2009 election and in November 2019.

In November 2019, OFAC reported, NAJA and NOPO officers “used excessive and lethal force, firing upon unarmed protesters, including women and children, with automatic weapons. NOPO forces blocked main streets with armed vehicles and fired randomly at crowds with heavy machine guns.”

The US also newly designated Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij, which was also instrumental in the killing of hundreds of Iranian civilians in November 2019. Soleimani was sanctioned by the European Union in April in connection with the slaughter.

A lesser-known name on the fresh sanctions list was that of Leila Vaseghi, the governor of Quds city in Karaj. OFAC has branded her responsible for issuing an order to local police and armed forces to shoot unarmed protesters, causing “dozens of deaths or injuries” in November 2019. Vaseghi was also sanctioned by the EU in April 2021.

Abuse and Executions of Political Detainees

The Treasury also sanctioned an array of actors in Iran for both recent and long-standing human rights abuses of political prisoners. These included IRGC interrogators Ali Hemmatian and Masoud Safdari. At IRGC-run detention facilities including inside Evin Prison, OFAC said, Hemmatian had ordered "physical beatings and whippings, resulting in lasting damage including cracked bones”. Safdari was accused of “physical beatings and threatening the families of detainees”. Both are also said to have directed the recording of prisoners’ forced confessions for state TV.

Zahedan Prison in Sistan and Baluchistan province is holding several arbitrarily-detained prisoners from the Baluch ethnic minority group. In January 2021 Baluch prisoner Hassan Dehvari, who had taken part in such acts of peaceful activism as signing open letters against the detention of Sunni Muslims, was executed in Zahedan on the charge of “armed rebellion against Islamic rule”. Dehvari had petitioned the UN for help and his request for a retrial was pending with the Supreme Court at the time he was hanged.

The last name on the list was that of Brigadier General Mohammad Karami, commander of the IRGC Ground Force’s Quds Base in Zahedan, who also commands officers at the Shamsar base. In February this year officers at Shamsar opened fire on unarmed Baluch fuel carriers during protests on the Saravan border, reportedly killing and injuring dozens of people.

Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan was designated over the execution of Mostafa Salehi last year. Salehi had taken part in protests in winter 2017-18 and was accused of having killed an IRGC officer, for which no evidence was ever provided. Salehi maintained his innocence until his death in August 2020. The prison, OFAC stated, “is responsible for the flagrant denial of the right to life and liberty of Salehi for seeking to exercise his right to freedom of expression and his right of peaceful assembly”.

Soghra Khodadadi, director of the notorious Qarchak women’s prison, was also sanctioned by OFAC for “ordering and directly participating in a violent attack on December 13, 2020 against prisoners of conscience in Ward 8 along with at least 20 other guards”. Officers are said to have beaten female political prisoners with batons and stun guns for having peacefully protested their detention.

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