US sanctions 12 officials linked to Iran's crackdown on dissent

The United States has issued fresh sanctions against 12 Iranian officials accused of violating the human rights of its citizens within and beyond the countries borders, Report informs via Iran International.

Those sanctioned include members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and officials from Iran’s Prisons Organization who played a role in suppressing widespread protests that followed the death of a young Iranian woman in September 2022.

“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 a senior Treasury official on Wednesday.

Top on the new sanctions list are four senior IRGC personnel who supervised crackdowns in four Iranian provinces, named as Hamid Khorramdel, Mustafa Bazvand, Ali Malek-Shahkoui and Saeed Beheshti-Rad.

“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,” the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said.

Also on the list are two IRGC and intelligence officials who allegedly targeted critics of the Islamic Republic abroad and four prison officials from three other provinces where dozens of prisoners were executed for drug offenses which even per Iranian law do not rise to the level of capital punishment.

The new measure has been coordinated with Canada and Australia and builds on multiple rounds of U.S. sanctions since the 2022 protests in Iran.