In response to the crackdown on demonstrations following the murder of Mahsa Amini, 22, while being detained by the morality police, the United States added more than a dozen Iranian officials to its sanctions blocklist on Wednesday.
According to Hengaw, a human rights organization headquartered in Norway, the penalties were announced as security forces opened fire on tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Amini’s village to mark 40 days since her passing.
Sanctions were imposed on Hossein Modarres Khiabani, the governor of Sistan and Baluchistan province, the scene of some of the worst violence brought on by the recent rallies, and Mohammad Kazemi, the chief of intelligence for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Seven national and regional prisons, the Isfahan police head, and two additional IRGC officers were all placed on a blacklist.
Kazemi “has supervised a heightened crackdown on civil society across the country” since becoming charge of the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization in June, the US Treasury said in a statement.
It said that the “regime’s aggressive use of violence against the Iranian people” included the IRGC and its Basij militia, who had used fatal force against protestors.
Khiabani, the governor of Sistan and Baluchistan, was in charge of an event on September 30 where security forces murdered at least 80 people in Zahedan, the province capital.
Additionally, the Treasury and State Departments imposed penalties on a corporation that reportedly engages in internet censorship for the government and two Iranian intelligence officers who allegedly run an academy for training and recruiting hackers.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated, “We join her family and the Iranian people for a day of sadness and contemplation. It has been 40 days since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the hands of Iran’s so-called “Morality Police.”
He declared, “The United States is committed to supporting the Iranian people and ensuring that those culpable for the savage crackdown on Iran’s ongoing countrywide rallies are held accountable.”
