WASHINGTON — The US, Canada and Australia on Wednesday imposed sanctions on a group of Iranian officials over their part in suppressing protests and arresting people in connection with the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman who died two years ago in the custody of Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing a headscarf.
Amini, 22, died on September 16, 2022in a hospital after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf, or hijab, according to authorities. Her death sparked nationwide protests against the country’s hijab laws and the ruling theocracy.
Wednesday’s sanctions include a dozen officials accused of killing and detaining protesters, suppressing protests in 2019 and 2022 and arresting journalists.
The new of the country reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian campaigned on a promise to end the harassment of women by the vice squad. Yet since Amini’s death, videos have emerged of women and girls being abused by officers.
In 2023, a teenage Iranian girl was injured in a mysterious incident on the Tehran metro while not wearing a headscarf and later died in hospital. In July, activists say police opened fire on a woman who fled a checkpoint in an attempt to avoid having her car impounded for not wearing a headscarf.
U.S. Treasury Department official Bradley T. Smith said: “Despite the Iranian people’s peaceful calls for reform, Iran’s leaders have doubled down on the regime’s tried-and-true tactics of violence and coercion.” The U.S. and its allies “will continue to take action to expose and hold accountable those responsible for carrying out the Iranian regime’s brutal agenda,” Smith said.
The sanctions, which block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted individuals and companies from doing business with the U.S., are largely symbolic, as many of the individuals have no interaction with the U.S.
In March, a United Nations fact-finding mission determined that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to the death of AminiIt also found that the Islamic Republic made “unnecessary and disproportionate use of lethal force” to suppress the demonstrations that broke out after Amini’s killing and that Iranian security forces sexually abused detainees.
In Iranian cities, you increasingly see women on the streets who do not wear a headscarf.
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Jon Gambrell, Associated Press editor in Dubai, contributed to this report.