The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it imposed new sanctions on Iranian officials responsible for the regime’s crackdown on the “woman, life, freedom” protests in the wake of the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
Bradley Smith, the acting under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, marked the Sept. 16 anniversary of Amini’s death in announcing the sanctions.
“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,” Smith said.
Amini was arrested by the morality police for “improperly” wearing her hijab, the head covering women in Iran are legally obligated to wear. Despite eyewitness accounts that she was beaten in custody by the police, the Islamic Republic claims that Amini, 22, died of a heart attack.
Her death sparked mass protests across Iran under the slogan “woman, life, freedom” that prompted a violent regime crackdown.
The U.S. Treasury Department announcement includes examples of the human-rights abuses carried out by the 12 sanctioned Iranian officials as part of the regime’s efforts to crush dissent.
“Alireza Babaei Farsani has acted as the director-general of Isfahan Province prisons since June 2021,” the announcement states. “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,” it adds. “Prison leadership has similarly engaged in systematic corruption and sexual violence, including the prostituting of inmates.”
Other newly sanctioned Iranian officials include an intelligence officer accused of having ties to Hezbollah and overseeing Iran’s efforts to assassinate Iranian dissidents abroad, including a plot to bomb a gathering of dissidents in France.
