WASHINGTON • The United States yesterday announced a sweeping new sanctions package on Iran targeting a foundation controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Washington accused Teheran officials of human rights abuses, a year after a deadly crackdown on anti-government demonstrators.
The sanctions imposed by the US Treasury Department mark the latest action to reinforce the "maximum pressure" campaign on Teheran pursued by the administration of President Donald Trump and come just over two months before he is due to leave office after his loss in the Nov 3 election.
The department imposed the sanctions on what it described as a key patronage network for the supreme leader.
It said it blacklisted the Bonyad Mostazafan, or the Foundation of the Oppressed, which is controlled by Mr Khamenei, as well as 10 individuals and 51 entities that it said were associated with the body.
The charitable foundation - an economic, cultural, and social welfare institution - has amassed vast amounts of wealth to the detriment of the rest of the Iranian economy and controls hundreds of companies and properties confiscated since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
"Iran's Supreme Leader uses Bonyad Mostazafan to reward his allies under the pretence of charity," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.
"The United States will continue to target key officials and revenue generating sources that enable the regime's ongoing repression of its own people."
The Treasury Department also slapped sanctions on Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, accusing his ministry of playing a role in serious human rights abuses against Iranians, including during the protests in November last year.
The crackdown a year ago may have been the bloodiest repression of protesters in Iran since the 1979 revolution.
Reuters reported last year that about 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov 15.
The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian interior ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.
Iran's Interior Ministry has said that around 225 people were killed during the demonstrations, which erupted after state media announced that gas prices would rise by as much as 200 per cent and the revenue would be used to help needy families.
The move to impose fresh sanctions comes as US President-elect Joe Biden promised to reinstate the nuclear deal which the US concluded with Iran in 2015, but withdrew from under the Trump administration.
Iran's foreign minister had welcomed the prospect of the US rejoining the nuclear deal and said his country is willing to return to full compliance if Mr Biden lifts the crushing sanctions ordered by Mr Trump.
"The fact that Mr Biden wants to return to the nuclear deal is great," Mr Mohammad Javad Zarif told the state-owned newspaper Iran in an interview published yesterday. "We're ready to hold talks over how the US can re-enter the nuclear deal."
The Biden administration, he added, can lift sanctions on Iran with three executive orders, repeating an Iranian prerequisite to returning to negotiations.
Mr Zarif's comments were the most conciliatory yet since Mr Biden was proclaimed the winner of the US presidential election, the results of which Mr Trump continues to contest.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
