US Sanctions More Iranian Officials Over Rights Abuses

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on dozens of people and entities over alleged human rights abuse or corruption across nine countries, including Russia, China and Iran. 

In recognition of International Anti-Corruption Day and Human Rights Day, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned a diverse array of over 40 individuals and entities connected to corruption or human rights abuse.

“Corrupt actors and human rights abusers both rely on deficiencies in the international financial system to perpetrate their activities,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.

The new sanctions targeted Ali Akbar Javidan, the head of Law Enforcement Forces in Iran’s Kermanshah province who has direct oversight over forces that have killed protesters, including children and the elderly. Another blacklisted official is Ebrahim Kouchakzaei (Kouchakzai), the police commander in Chabahar, in the Sistan and Baluchistan province, the alleged perpetrator of a mid-September 2022 rape of a 15-year-old girl. Allah-Karam Azizi, the warden of Iran’s notorious Rejaee Shahr Prison is also among the officials designated in the latest measure.

The Treasury said that since September, when the protests ignited by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, it has issued five rounds of sanctions targeting the Morality Police, a range of Iranian security and government officials involved in the use of violence against Iranian protestors, prison officials involved in the detention of protestors, Iranian media officials associated with broadcasts of coerced confessions relating to the protests, and officials responsible for shutting down Iran’s Internet to stifle freedom of expression online.