US Treasury sanctions IRIB employees for exposing collaborators on TV

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
16 Nov 2022 21:26

More sanctions from Washington target Iran.

US Treasury Department. (AP)

Washington has sanctioned 6 senior employees of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) service, the US Department of the Treasury said in a press release on Wednesday.

“Today, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating six senior employees of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the Iranian state-run media corporation that has broadcast hundreds of forced confessions of Iranian, dual national, and international detainees in Iran,” the release claimed.

According to the release, the broadcaster and its subsidiaries have a "monopoly" over Iranian television as they play a role in the Iranian government's so-called "mass suppression and censorship campaign against its own people."

Treasury also sanctioned Ali Rezvani and Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour for cooperating with Iranian intelligence to extract air confessions of collaborators in the form of documentaries.

Within this context, IRIB produced and broadcast televised interviews of individuals confessing that their relatives were not killed by Iranian authorities, but rather from causes having nothing to do with the state itself.

IRIB officials, such as Peyman Jebelli (IRIB's director), Mohsen Bormahani (IRIB's deputy director), Ahmad Noroozi (IRIB World Service's head), and Yousef Pouranvari (director of programs and scheduling at IRIB World Service).

Yesterday, Treasury implemented a new set of sanctions against Iran, this time targeting Iranian companies that produce and facilitate the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia to use in the war in Ukraine.

"Today, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning firms involved in the production or ongoing transfer to Russia of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which Russia has used in devastating attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine," the statement said.

The three entities are Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center, Success Aviation Services FZC, and Jet Global DMCC. They are being sanctioned, according to Washington, for their role in the production and facilitation of the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia as written in a statement.

In addition, two individuals - Abbas Djuma and Tigran Khristoforovich Srabionov - have been sanctioned for their role in the transfer of drones, according to the statement.