US Defends Waiver Of Sanctions On Iran’s State Broadcaster
Washington says it has renewed a waiver of sanctions against Iran’s state radio and television establishment, the IRIB, on the basis of US national interests.
Washington says it has renewed a waiver of sanctions against Iran’s state radio and television establishment, the IRIB, on the basis of US national interests.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during his press briefing on Thursday that the US periodically reviews this waiver to allow the provision of satellite broadcast service to the IRIB under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or ITSO.
Trying to justify the decision by the administration, he said that "this waiver has been renewed by successive American administrations without any interruption since 2014. The waiver has been issued close to 20 times – some 18 or so times – in recent years.”
Despite Price’s claim that Washington uses every single available tool to hold Iranian authorities accountable for their human rights abuses and for their censorship, the waiver seems to contradict repeated pledges to support the Iranians who for over five months have been protesting against the regime and its leaders.
The sanctions waiver raises more questions as Price said, “We are and remain seriously concerned by the IRIB’s role in censoring the Iranian people’s access to information and its involvement in human rights abuses.”
With a wording meant to minimize the effects of the waiver, Price said that “While this narrow waiver allows for the provision of satellite broadcast services to IRIB, IRIB and its senior leadership remain subject to US sanctions under various authorities, including for their involvement in censorship and human rights abuses.” He was referring to a series of recent sanctions on IRIB officials, including its president Peyman Jebelli and the chief of the world service Ahmad Norouzi. Two brothers of Jebelli, close to Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba, have recently defected and sought asylum in the US.
While the sanctions on leaders are important, the waiver for IRIB allows it to continue to broadcast regime propaganda and forced confessions of prisoners on international satellites.
Price dodged a direct answer about the reason behind the waiver, saying, “These are underlying conditions that we look at every time this waiver comes up for renewal. We ultimately are going to do what is in our interest but ultimately what we deem to be most effective to promote the aspirations of the Iranian people.”
Questioned to elaborate on these “national interests,” he only said that “these are complex issues involving our membership in the ITSO, involving a number of factors, but we look at this very carefully through every single lens.”
Defending the decision, he said, “we have made the judgment call, as have previous administrations multiple times over every 180 days, that waiving these sanctions are in our interest.” He continued, however, “We also believe it’s in the interest of our ability to protect, to promote the aspirations of the Iranian people.”
Amid measures targeting the Islamic Republic’s financial and energy sectors, under Executive Order 13846, by then President Donald Trump in 2018 after he withdrew the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement – US government departments are empowered to sanction entities implicated in “censorship or other activities with respect to Iran on or after June 12, 2009, that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression…or that limit access to print or broadcast media.”
The US first designated IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) in 2013, and in 2018 reimposed the move in what then Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said was a part of “the maximum pressure exerted by the United States” after withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement.
IRGC Commander-In-Chief Major General Hossein Salami said Wednesday that the threats against the Persian channel’s journalists, which forced the channel to stop its broadcasting in London and move to Washington DC, "show how far the Islamic Revolution's realm of power, field of infiltration and radius of influence has extended."
Iran International was warned by authorities in November that its journalists were under threat from Iranian agents and the Metropolitan Police took measures to strengthen security around the network’s office in the area. On February 18, the network announced that following the advice of UK anti-terrorism officials it decided to temporarily move its studio operations to the US.
The decision solicited condemnations of Iran’s malign activities and worldwide reactions. “At its sharpest, this has involved police and MI5 working together to foil 15 plots since the start of 2022 to either kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime,” said a senior official of UK counter terrorism police.
Despite the evident threats against Iran International’s journalists and UK’s acknowledgment of them, as well as several rallies by Iranian diaspora communities across Europe this month to push countries to list the IRGC as a terror outfit, European states are still hesitant.
Economic embargoes and sanctions were among other measures the enemies used along with their entire intelligence and legal systems as well as international institutions and media powers to defeat the Islamic Republic, but they failed, Salami said, implying that the global community did not manage to designate IRGC as a terrorist organization or curb its destabilizing activities in the region and beyond.
Western countries have strongly rebuked Tehran for its bloody crackdown on protests, its military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and lack of compromise over its highly disputed nuclear program. The IRGC is the most important arm of the regime, doing the heavy lifting of cracking down on Iranians and circumventing global sanctions to sell oil and funnel money to keep the regime afloat.
Salami added that “the enemies” are disappointed by the failure of all their strategies and have reached out for help from opposition figures “who are not even worth mentioning.”
After a historic forum in Washington earlier this month by eight prominent dissident activists, they have been traveling to events around the world to make the voice of the Iranian opposition heard. Such events signal the emergence of a leadership council in the diaspora to campaign for international support in favor of Iran’s protest movement.
In an interview on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, however, dismissed Iran International’s relocation as a win for the regime, rather a coordinated effort by Western intelligence services.
Kanaani said that the Islamic Republic reserves the right to file a lawsuit against the US over the TV channel’s role in “inciting riots,” reiterating the regime’s propaganda line that blames foreign countries for over five months of antigovernment protests.
“The developments surrounding the Iran International terrorist media indicate that the channel is being supported and managed by the intelligence services of a number of certain countries, including the UK,” the spokesman said. “From our viewpoint, even if the channel is relocated from London to the US, the responsibility will still lie with the governments sponsoring and hosting such quasi-media, particularly the UK government, in relation to its (the channel’s) terrorist, separatist and anti-Iranian activities,” he added.
On Monday, UK’s Security Minister Tom Tugendhat at the British Parliament voiced full support for Iran International TV, saying “The Home Secretary and I absolutely condemn this outrageous violation of our sovereignty, and the attempted violation of the human rights of those journalists.”
“Its operatives and affiliates will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence,” Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib said in November. “And from now on, any kind of connection with this terrorist organization will be considered to be tantamount to entering into terrorism and a threat to the national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
On Monday, an estimated crowd of about 20 to 30 thousand people held a rally in Brussels outside the European Council to call on EU countries to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Thousands of Iranians from all over Europe held a massive rally in Strasbourg in January for the same purpose.