On Sept. 18, 2024, the United States imposed sanctions on 12 Iranians linked to repression in Iran and abroad. They included members of the Revolutionary Guards, the Prisons Organization, and Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The announcement came two days after the anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who died in police detention for alleged “improper” hijab, or headscarf, in 2022. Her death sparked nationwide protests that lasted some four months.
“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 Smith. “The United States, along with our allies and partners, will continue to take action to expose and hold accountable those responsible for carrying out the Iranian regime’s cruel agenda.” The Treasury Department coordinated with the governments of Canada and Australia, which also announced sanctions for human rights abuses. The following is the Treasury Department press release.
On the same day, U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator James Lankford (R-OK) introduced the Iran Internet Freedom Act to help Iranians connect to the outside world. It would authorize $30 million over two years for grants through the Open Technology Fund to support open, reliable, and secure internet service in particular to human rights defenders, independent journalists, civil society, and marginalized groups inside Iran. The following is the Treasury Department press release on the new sanctions.
Treasury Department
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. These designations target members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), officials of Iran’s Prisons Organization, and those responsible for lethal operations overseas. Today’s action is being taken in coordination with Canada and Australia, which have also unveiled new sanctions against those connected to human rights abuses in Iran.
“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 United States, along with our allies and partners, will continue to take action to expose and hold accountable those responsible for carrying out the Iranian regime’s cruel agenda.”
Today’s action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13553, which imposes sanctions on certain persons with respect to serious human rights abuses by the Government of Iran.
SECURITY FORCES
Iran’s security forces, including the IRGC and its Basij paramilitary force, have led the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protests. In cities all over Iran, IRGC units have used lethal force against protestors, arrested people for political expression, and attempted to intimidate the Iranian people through violence. Treasury designated the IRGC, Basij, and Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) pursuant to E.O. 13553 on June 9, 2011 in connection with the security forces’ human rights abuses, including violent actions taken by them in the wake of Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election.
Hamid Khorramdel (Khorramdel) serves as the commander of the IRGC’s Fatah Corps of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, which, under his leadership and in coordination with the LEF and the Basij, suppressed protests in 2019 and 2022 by arresting and detaining protesters. During the 2022 crackdown, IRGC forces under Khorramdel’s command were responsible for arresting and coercing confessions from activists.
Mustafa Bazvand (Bazvand) serves as the commander of the IRGC and Basij Resistance Force in Mazandaran province’s Babolsar county. During nationwide protests in October 2022, forces under Bazvand’s command led the regime’s crackdown in Babolsar, killing at least one individual and arresting several journalists covering the violence.
Ali Malek-Shahkoui (Malek-Shahkoui) serves as the commander of the IRGC’s Golestan Corps of Golestan province. Malek-Shakhoui orchestrated the IRGC’s response to the 2022 protests in Golestan, where troops under his command violently suppressed protests and arrested demonstrators.
Saeed Beheshti-Rad (Beheshti-Rad) serves as the deputy coordinator of the IRGC’s Hazrat Nabi Akram Corps in Kermanshah province. Forces under Beheshti-Rad’s command were responsible for the violent crackdown on peaceful protestors during nationwide protests in both 2019 and 2022. Beheshti-Rad’s forces were responsible for the arrest of many protestors, who Behesthi-Rad falsely accused of being “foreign spies” or members of “anti-revolutionary” groups.
Khorramdel, Bazvand, Malek-Shahkoui, and Beheshti-Rad are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the IRGC.
SERIOUS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN IRANIAN PRISONS
Many of those who protested against the Iranian regime in 2019 and 2022 found themselves ensnared in Iran’s prison system, which is notorious for its cruelty and wanton disregard for the welfare of its charges.
Ali Abdi (Abdi) has served as the Director-General of South Khorasan Province Prisons since July 2022. During Abdi’s tenure, numerous prisoners at Birjand Central Prison in South Khorasan Province have been executed for drug offenses other than those that would allow the death penalty. Consistent with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the death penalty may only be imposed for the most serious crimes and can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgment rendered by a competent court. Others have died due to lack of medical care. A disproportionately high number of those executed belong to Iran’s oppressed Baluch minority group.
Reports from South Khorasan prisons indicate that prison officials have executed prisoners without proper due process of law, and without prior notification to the prisoners’ legal counsel or family. In one case, a Baluchi prisoner was executed by Birjand Central Prison officials despite a recommendation by Iran’s Revolutionary Court for the inmate’s case to be referred for commutation of the death penalty.
Alireza Babaei Farsani (Farsani) has acted as the Director-General of Isfahan Province Prisons since June 2021. In December 2022, it was revealed the Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi had been subjected to torture or other ill-treatment for weeks in Isfahan Central Prison with the goal of forcing him into a televised confession.
In Dolatabad Women’s Prison, also in Isfahan province, prison officials have tasked inmates with torturing and harassing other prisoners, particularly those incarcerated for political offenses. Prison leadership has similarly engaged in systematic corruption and sexual violence, including the prostituting of inmates.
Ahmad Reza Azadeh (Azadeh) serves as the head of Sepidar Prison and between 2019 and 2023 served as the head of Shiban Prison, both of which are located in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province. Inmates under Azadeh’s administration include those who were arrested during the late 2022 nationwide protests following Mahsa Zhina Amini’s death. At least one is facing imminent execution for participating in these protests under spurious charges, including being responsible for the death of a child, which eyewitnesses attributed to Iranian security forces.
During Azadeh’s time as head of Shiban Prison, prison guards on several occasions used live ammunition and tear gas on prisoners protesting inadequate conditions in the prison. Prisoners in Shiban Prison were subject to torture and other ill-treatment, denied medical care, and blamed for the deaths of prisoners killed by security forces.
Gholamreza Roshan (Roshan) has acted as the Director-General of Khuzestan Province Prisons since July 2022. In prisons under Roshan’s oversight, including Shiban Prison in Ahvaz, political prisoners have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and denied necessary medical treatment. Prisons officials in Shiban Prison have profited from the sale of addictive drugs to inmates, particularly those convicted under political offenses.
Abdi, Farsani, Azadeh, and Roshan are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for being a person acting on behalf of the Government of Iran (including members of paramilitary organizations) who is responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Iran or Iranian citizens or residents, or the family members of the foregoing, on or after June 12, 2009, regardless of whether such abuses occurred in Iran.
EXTERNAL PLOTTING
Yahya Hosseini Panjaki (Panjaki) serves as the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) deputy intelligence minister for internal security affairs, where he oversees the Iranian regime’s efforts to assassinate Iranian dissidents abroad. Panjaki has been linked to multiple MOIS-sponsored plots carried out in coordination with narcotics traffickers and terrorist groups, including Hizballah. Panjaki played a role in the attempted bombing of a gathering of Iranian dissidents in Paris, among other operations in Europe.
Panjaki is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the MOIS. MOIS was designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 on February 16, 2012 for its central role in perpetrating human rights abuses against the citizens of Iran on or after June 12, 2009. MOIS officials have previously been designated for their role in in kidnapping and assassination plots against U.S. citizens and Iranian dissidents who have fled Iran.
Javad Ghaffarhaddadi (Ghaffarhaddadi), known also as Javad Ghaffari, serves the head of the IRGC-Intelligence Organization’s Special Operations division, a position he has held since at least early 2022. The IRGC-IO has played a key role in targeting critics of the Iranian regime abroad, including the 2019 kidnapping of France-based journalist and political refugee Ruhollah Zam, which ultimately led to his execution in Iran. The IRGC-IO has played a similar role at home, detaining and interrogating Iranians that have taken part in protests against the regime. An IRGC-IO operative who had been working with the U.S.-designated, Iran-backed terrorist organization Harakat al-Nujaba was arrested in Iraq recently in connection with the November 2022 murder in Baghdad of a U.S. citizen, educator Stephen Troell.
Ghaffarhaddadi is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the IRGC. The IRGC-IO was designated pursuant to E.O. 14078 on April 27, 2023 for its role in the hostage-taking or wrongful detention of U.S. nationals in Iran.
Hamid Zareikajosangi (Zareikajosangi), known also as Hamid Zera’ati or Hamid Zera’i, is a field operative who is part of the IRGC-QF’s infamous Department 840. He has been involved in recruiting for the IRGC-QF since at least 2021, including recruitment of a known cyber activist and recruiting Department 840 assets outside of Iran.
Zareikajosangiis being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the IRGC-QF.
Mahmud Baghlani (Baghlani) is an IRGC affiliate who is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the IRGC.
SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS
As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the individuals and entities that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC. OFAC’s sanctions generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within the United States (including transactions transiting the United States) that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons.
Non-U.S. persons are prohibited from causing or conspiring to cause U.S. persons to wittingly or unwittingly violate U.S. sanctions, as well as engaging in conduct that evades U.S. sanctions. OFAC’s Economic Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines provide more information regarding OFAC’s enforcement of U.S. sanctions, including the factors that OFAC generally considers when determining an appropriate response to an apparent violation.
In addition, persons that engage in certain transactions with the individuals or entities designated today may themselves be exposed to designation. Furthermore, any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates a significant transaction or provides significant financial services for any of the individuals or entities designated today could be subject to U.S. correspondent or payable-through account sanctions.
The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only from OFAC’s ability to designate and add persons to the SDN List, but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior. For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN List, please refer to OFAC’s Frequently Asked Question 897 here. For detailed information on the process to submit a request for removal from an OFAC sanctions list, please click here.
Click here for identifying information on the individuals and entities designated today.