Reciprocal Move: Iran to Announce Human Rights-related Sanctions on US Individuals, Entities

By Staff, Agencies 

Iran is set to announce sanctions on a number of American individuals and entities involved in flagrant violations of human rights, days after Washington targeted the Islamic Republic with new bans over baseless claims of rights abuses.

Kazem Gharibabadi, the Iranian Judiciary chief’s deputy and secretary general of the country’s High Council for Human Rights, said Thursday that the blacklist of US individuals and entities was scheduled to be released soon.

The top human rights official said the latest decision by the US to target Iranians with sanctions was “a continuation of the failed maximum pressure policy against the Iranian nation and the use of sanctions as a tool for political gains.”

He said the US cannot claim to be an advocate of freedom and human rights in Iran while jeopardizing the lives of ordinary Iranians by blocking their access to medicine and medical equipment.

“This is not acceptable at all and is more like a bitter joke,” Gharibabadi stated.

He added that the US must be held accountable for committing violence against peaceful protesters and police killings of innocent people.

“George Floyd is merely one among countless people killed in the worst possible way publicly, without justice being served,” he said.

The Iranian official also referred to the dire conditions of US prisons, the large number of women in jail, and the use of torture against prisoners as proof to the deplorable human rights violations by the US government.

The US Treasury and State Department announced the anti-Iran sanctions on Tuesday, two days before the resumption of negotiations in Vienna to revive the Iran nuclear deal by removing Washington’s sanctions, which it slapped on the Islamic Republic after withdrawing from the nuclear pact, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA].