Two years after Mahsa Amini death, Western allies sanction a dozen Iranian officials

WASHINGTON — The U.S., Canada and Austrailia hit a group of Iranian officials with sanctions Wednesday for their participation in suppressing protests and detaining people in relation to the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman who died in the custody of Iran's morality police two years ago for improperly wearing a mandatory headscarf.

Amini, 22, died on Sept. 16, 2022, in a hospital after being arrested for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of the authorities. Her death sparked nationwide protests against the country’s hijab laws and its ruling theocracy.

Included in Wednesday's sanctions are a dozen officials accused of killing and detaining protestors, suppressing protests in 2019 and 2022 and arresting journalists.

The country’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian campaigned on a promise to halt the harassment of women by morality police. Still, since Amini’s death, videos have emerged of women and girls being roughed up by officers.

In 2023, a teenage Iranian girl was injured in a mysterious incident on Tehran’s Metro while not wearing a headscarf and later died in hospital. In July, activists say police opened fire on a woman fleeing a checkpoint in an attempt to avoid her car being impounded for her not wearing the hijab.

U.S. Treasury official Bradley T. Smith said, “Despite the Iranian people’s peaceful calls for reform, Iran’s leaders have doubled down on the regime’s well-worn tactics of violence and coercion.” The U.S. and its allies “will continue to take action to expose and hold accountable those responsible for carrying out the Iranian regime’s cruel agenda,” Smith said.

The sanctions, which block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with the U.S. are largely symbolic since many of the individuals do not interact with the U.S.

In March, a United Nations fact-finding mission determined that Iran is responsible for the “physical violence” that led to the death of Amini. It also found that the Islamic Republic employed “unnecessary and disproportionate use of lethal force” to put down the demonstrations that erupted following Amini’s death and that Iranian security forces sexually assaulted detainees.

Increasingly, on the streets of Iranian cities, it’s becoming more common to see a woman passing by without a mandatory headscarf.

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.