The U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Jan. 15 targeting Iranian officials said to be responsible for organizing the violent suppression of protests against the Tehran regime.
In all, the Treasury Department targeted five individuals it connected to Iran’s efforts to violently throttle protests.
The department said another 18 targeted individuals and entities are working as a “shadow banking” network, in efforts to sustain previously sanctioned Iranian financial institutions.
Protests have flared across Iran in recent weeks, as the declining value of the Iranian rial has fueled existing economic woes.
The situation has turned deadly as Iranian security forces have met demonstrators in the streets with violence.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify these figures.
“At the direction of President [Donald] Trump, the Treasury Department is sanctioning key Iranian leaders involved in the brutal crackdown against the Iranian people.
“Treasury will use every tool to target those behind the regime’s tyrannical oppression of human rights.”
In the same post, he wrote, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
Among those targeted with the new U.S. sanctions is Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security.
“Larijani is responsible for coordinating the response to the protests on behalf of [Iranian leader Ali Khamenei] and has publicly called for Iranian security forces to use force to repress peaceful protesters,” the Treasury Department said.
Additional U.S. sanctions targeted the local heads of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and police commanders in the Lorestan and Fars provinces.
The Treasury Department identified Mohammad Reza Hashemifar and Nematollah Bagheri as the sanctioned commanders of the police and the IRGC forces in Lorestan Province, respectively.
In one city in Lorestan Province, the Treasury Department said, security forces “shot multiple civilians, including one whose deceased body was held by security forces to coerce the family into falsely identifying the individual as a martyr for the government.”
Azizollah Maleki and Yadollah Buali are the sanctioned IRGC and police commanders in Fars Province, respectively.
The Treasury Department said some hospitals within Fars Province have been flooded with people with gunshot wounds, to the point at which they cannot admit any other types of patients.
The department also said the families of those killed “have been forced to give false testimony on national television to support the regime’s narratives, lest their loved ones’ bodies never be returned.”
New sanctions also targeted several Iranian business entities and executives, whom the Treasury Department accused of helping to facilitate continued business for the Iranian state-owned Bank Melli and Shahr Bank, both subject to previous rounds of U.S. sanctions.
The Iran-based Nikan Pezhvak Aria Kish Co. and its board members—Mehdi Rashno, Bashir Abbaspour Qomi, and Hamid Reza Khamer—are among those penalized for allegedly acting as a front for Bank Melli.
Singapore-based Golden Mist PTE. Ltd. and United Arab Emirates-based Empire International Trading FZE are also punished for allegedly acting as a front for Bank Melli.
United Arab Emirates-based HMS Trading FZE and Iran-based Tejarat Hermes Energy Qeshm are sanctioned for allegedly serving as fronts for Shahr Bank.
Three senior officials at Tejarat Hermes Energy Qeshm—Masoud Mahdavi Ardakani, Masoud Shamani, and Akbar Givari—are also included in the latest sanctions.
Trump provided few additional details about the source of this update, but said, “We’ve been told on good authority, and I hope it’s true.”
