December 7, 2021: The US Treasury imposed fresh sanctions on Iranian officials involved in the killing of peaceful protesters during the November 2019 uprisings.
LEF Special Units and NOPO Forces: “used excessive and lethal force, firing upon unarmed protestors, including women and children, with automatic weapons” in November 2019 protests.
Hassan Karami: has overseen LEF during nationwide unrest where “LEF Special Units have employed excessive and lethal force”.
Mohsen Ebrahimi: oversaw NOPO during nationwide unrest where “NOPO employed excessive and lethal force against Iranian unarmed protestors”.
Gholamreza Soleimani: Commands the Bassij, “among the Iranian security organizations that collectively killed hundreds of Iranian men, women, and children”.
Leila Vaseghi: Governor of Qods city, issued order “to shoot unarmed protestors, causing dozens of deaths or injuries”.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the Iranian political prisoner Abbas Shelishat, 45, was sentenced to death on charges of killing a security agent during November 2019 protests.
Shelishat, father of two, is from Mahshahr, one of the cities where Iranian security forces carried out a bloodbath during the protests.
After arresting Shelishat, Iranian authorities tortured him to extract forced confessions and sentence him to death. His supposed victim is a commander of the Special Forces who gunned down unarmed protesters in Mahshahr. Iran’s regime regularly uses torture to force prisoners to confess to crimes they did not commit.
Iranian officials involved in torturing political prisoners sanctioned by US Treasury
The US Treasury imposed fresh sanctions on Iranian officials involved in the torture of political prisoners. IRGC interrogators Ali Hemmatian and Masoud Safdari: “have long records of physical abuse against Iranian political prisoners”
Hemmatian employed physical beatings and whippings during interrogation of prisoners
Safdari was involved in “detainee abuse, to include physical beatings and threatening the families of detainees”
Soghra Khodadadi, director of Qarchak Women’s Prison: ordered and participated in “a violent attack on December 13, 2020 against prisoners of conscience”
Brigadier General Mohammad Karami: commanded IRGC officers who “fired live ammunition at unarmed fuel porters” in Sistan and Baluchestan on February 22, 2021
Read more: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0517
