US sanctions employees of Iranian state-run broadcaster
The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is accused of airing hundreds of forced confessions, including from the relatives of Iranians killed in the ongoing protests.
The US Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions on six senior employees of an Iranian state-run media corporation accused of broadcasting hundreds of forced confessions of detainees in Iran.
The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control described the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), which was designated in 2013, as “a critical tool in the Iranian government’s mass suppression and censorship campaign against its own people.”
Since protests erupted over the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, IRIB has aired televised interviews of individuals forced to say that their relatives weren’t killed by security forces during the protests but rather died from other causes.
According to the Treasury Department, IRIB regularly broadcasts false accusations against Iranian citizens, dual nationals and foreigners, and uses forced confessions to frame them as spies.
