By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer / September 29, 2010
Washington
The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions against eight Iranian officials, including several government ministers for widespread human rights violation in Iran.
The action follows new sanctions imposed on Iran earlier this year over its nuclear program, but Wednesday’s measures were the first imposed by the US on Iran for human rights violations.
The sanctions – taken by President Obama and announced at a press conference by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – come more than a year after the administration and Mr. Obama in particular were criticized for a guarded response to the bloody crackdown on the Iranian opposition that followed Iran’s June 2009 presidential election.
The new measures focused on human rights violations and targeting specific alleged human-rights abusers raised immediate questions of “why now,” and “why not sooner?”
Clinton said that while the administration has always been clear in its condemnation of the Iranian government over human-rights violations, with Wednesday’s measures it is now going further. “Today we are moving from just criticizing the government … to calling out individuals within the government whom we believe can be traced to abuses,” she said.
Clinton said the administration is acting as a result of legislation passed by Congress earlier this year – the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act – that expands the president’s options for applying pressure to the Iranian government.
At the time of Iran’s 2009 election and after days of near-silence from the White House during harshly repressed street demonstrations in Iran, many US-Iran experts concluded that Obama was restraining criticism in hopes of keeping bridges open to a dialogue with Iran.
On Wednesday Clinton offered a justification for the muted response in 2009, saying the administration was mindful that any high-profile support from the US president for the opposition movement could end up being used by the government as a pretext for cracking down harder.
“We were mindful that this indigenous opposition not somehow be seen as a US enterprise, because it wasn’t,” she said.
Reference
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy
Washington
The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions against eight Iranian officials, including several government ministers for widespread human rights violation in Iran.
The action follows new sanctions imposed on Iran earlier this year over its nuclear program, but Wednesday’s measures were the first imposed by the US on Iran for human rights violations.
The sanctions – taken by President Obama and announced at a press conference by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – come more than a year after the administration and Mr. Obama in particular were criticized for a guarded response to the bloody crackdown on the Iranian opposition that followed Iran’s June 2009 presidential election.
The new measures focused on human rights violations and targeting specific alleged human-rights abusers raised immediate questions of “why now,” and “why not sooner?”
Clinton said that while the administration has always been clear in its condemnation of the Iranian government over human-rights violations, with Wednesday’s measures it is now going further. “Today we are moving from just criticizing the government … to calling out individuals within the government whom we believe can be traced to abuses,” she said.
Clinton said the administration is acting as a result of legislation passed by Congress earlier this year – the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act – that expands the president’s options for applying pressure to the Iranian government.
At the time of Iran’s 2009 election and after days of near-silence from the White House during harshly repressed street demonstrations in Iran, many US-Iran experts concluded that Obama was restraining criticism in hopes of keeping bridges open to a dialogue with Iran.
On Wednesday Clinton offered a justification for the muted response in 2009, saying the administration was mindful that any high-profile support from the US president for the opposition movement could end up being used by the government as a pretext for cracking down harder.
“We were mindful that this indigenous opposition not somehow be seen as a US enterprise, because it wasn’t,” she said.
Reference
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy
Conclusion:
Talking frankly about 9/11 is forbidden in US perhaps because it may cause people doubt about the reality. When president Ahmadinejad asked questions on this issue in the U.N, America tried to divert attentions. So a new political topic was posed; human rights violation in last year bloody crackdown- a very impressing phrase.
Imposed sanctions are designed to freeze any assets in the US and to limit international travel option. Among the individuals targeted are Iran’s minister of the interior and deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces for law enforcement, the minister of welfare and social security, the minister of intelligence, the deputy chief of the national police, and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Interesting point is that these people don't have any assets in the US so practically these sanctions will be useless. In fact the US has tried to represent these people to the world as human rights violators by mentioning their names.
U.S acts very smartly in foreign policy. It chooses the best time and way to interfere in internal affairs of other countries. By imposing these sanctions, the US tried not only to convict Iran as human rights violator, but also to represent itself as human rights defender..
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