Iran: US sanctions on police officials sign of Washington’s despair

Last month, the US Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli and several other Iranian law enforcement officials and institutions over what it claimed to be their role in “human rights abuses.”

Brigadier Ahmad Nourian, a spokesman for Iran’s Law Enforcement Force, denounced the “illegal” and “unwise” move by the US Treasury, saying the sanctions were part of the so-called “maximum pressure” on the Islamic Republic.

“Although the inclusion of [military] officials, authorities and commanders of the Islamic Republic in the so-called US sanctions list is an ineffective and repeated move, the Americans, by once again sanctioning [Iran’s] law enforcement commanders, showed their indignation about the reverberations of the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary and anti-hegemonic discourse,” Nourian said in an interview with Iran’s Fars news agency. “They exposed their malice and enmity with the honorable Iranian establishment and nation to all.”

“Enemies should know that such sanctions will not weaken the strong resolve of the Iranian people in their fight against the hostile policies of the United States, and that resistance will continue.”

Tensions have soared between Iran and the US since President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries consisting of the United States, the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany, and reimposed the sanctions that had been lifted under the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) — known as the World Court — has ordered the US to lift the sanctions it has illegally re-imposed on humanitarian supplies to Iran.

Nourian also pointed to the death in custody of unarmed African-American George Floyd in the United States, saying US police forces oppress “the people of color in the country” and violate “human rights” there, but the US government, which supports terrorism, “accuses Iran and its police forces of human rights violations.”

Floyd lost his life after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25.

His death has sparked mass rallies in the United States and across the world, reigniting long-felt anger over police killings of African-Americans and breathing a new life into the Black Lives Matter movement.