State Department Reconfirms Iranian Human Rights Abuses

(New York, N.Y.) — United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) Chairman Senator Joseph I. Lieberman and CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace released the following joint statement today following the release of the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which outlined a wide variety of abuses by Iran, including unlawful killings, executions, torture, and political imprisonment, as well as significant restrictions of free expression, the media, religion, and peaceful assembly, among others. 

“Iran has engaged in killings, violence, censorship, corruption, human trafficking, hostage taking of foreign nationals, as well as the targeting of women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQI persons, protestors, journalists, workers, and others. Secretary Blinken and the State Department are clearly under no illusions about the Iranian regime’s grotesque human rights abuses, and UANI welcomes the comprehensive report. 

“The Biden Administration should ask itself, before making any agreements with Iran, whether shifts in U.S. policy will improve the lives of those suffering at the hands of the Iranian regime or enrich and empower their abusers. If the President has indeed put human rights at the center of American foreign policy, as he has pledged, then there is no rationale for making it easier for the regime to reach new depths of depravity. 

“The U.S. should seek to unmask and hold human rights abusers accountable, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other high ranking regime leaders, and increase economic and diplomatic isolation until the regime ends its malign behavior. The Biden administration should not lift sanctions on Raisi, who is accused of crimes against humanity, under Executive Order 13876 to revive the Iran nuclear deal. 

“In addition, Congress should respond by requiring sanctions on senior regime officials and others responsible for hostage-taking and other human rights abuses. The Biden Administration should also sanction every one of the dozens of Iranian officials already designated by the European Union for human rights violations and aggressively employ its authorities under various Executive Orders and the Global Magnitsky Act. 

“This report is an indictment against the Iranian regime. It is a moral obligation and in our security interests to promote and defend human rights, especially where they are under the greatest threat.” 

To read UANI’s Cruel and Inhuman: Executions And Other Punishments In Iran resource, please click here. 

To read UANI’s profile on Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, please click here.

To read UANI’s profile on Iran’s Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, please click here.

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