Iran International
Iran has retained its place on the Financial Action Task Force’s(FATF) blacklist, for not respecting international banking and related rules after a meeting in Singapore concluded Friday.
The FATF is a global financial watchdog that leads action to tackle money laundering, terrorist and proliferation financing. The watchdog does not have enforcement powers but describes itself as a monitoring system on how criminals and terrorists raise, use and move funds.
The continuation of the blacklist designation means Tehran is subject to increased monitoring and restrictions.
Toby Dershowitz, the Managing Director of the FDD's Action, said being on the blacklist has “reputational” and real consequences like having an impact on investments, thereby deterring other countries from doing business with Iran.
“It sends a message to the whole financial system, that is to banks, to all kinds of financial institutions...that basically says it's not safe to do business with Iran.”
Dershowitz said it means Iran has to constantly find tactics to get around these measures.
But those implications, according Mahdi Ghodsi, an economist with the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, may actually benefit Iranian regime insiders who assist in circumventing sanctions, which hurt ordinary citizens.
“So these are the people who we don't know. They are not part of the government. They are hidden financial apparatus that nobody cares about them. They're just people that are providing some service circumventing sanctions. And they're getting enormous amount of financial profits. At the same time, they're benefiting the governments who are in line with them,” he said.
Ghodsi told Iran International that Tehran is selling oil in Malaysia which is being exported to China. US government officials have also said that Iran uses the help of service providers in Malaysia to sell its oil abroad, circumventing US sanctions.
“As long as they're benefiting from this, they don't care about blacklisting,” said Ghodsi.
Ghodsi said the significance to the Iranian government is a message from the FATF that “we are watching you.”
“I don't think that it can have any significant impact on what they're [Iran] is doing,” said Ghodsi.
While Dershowitz agrees that ordinary citizens suffer the most, because of the regime’s money laundering and terror finance, she said the FATF listing can make Iran’s economy risky to its partners like Venezuela, which was, for the first time, placed on the graylist Friday.
"And one of the reasons that it did so is because of the ties that Venezuela has with Iran. So because Iran has some malign activities these are adversely impacting other countries such as Venezuela,” she said.
Friday’s blacklist also a signaling, Ghodsi, said that the US administration may change their tone on Iran to include more pressure and stricter policies.
Myanmar and North Korea are also on the FATF blacklist in addition to Iran.
The daughter of Mousavi and Rahnavard, who have been under house arrest since 2011, announced on Friday that her parents would abstain from participating in the presidential election. Meanwhile, Karroubi was photographed casting his ballot, and his son had previously confirmed his endorsement of Pezeshkian.
The Green Movement sprang up in 2009, when in a dubious presidential election Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was unexpectedly was announced the winner, triggering protests. Mousavi and Karroubi who were running against Ahmadinejad were later put under house arrest after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei denounced then as "seditionists."
This is while the relatively moderate Pezeshkian's candidacy is seen by many as an attempt to create an illusion of competition and boost historically low voter turnout, as witnessed in the 2023 parliamentary elections, where turnout hit a record low since 1979.
Iran's un-elected election watchdog, the Guardian Council allowed five conservative-hardliners and one reform-minded candidate to run. Two hardliners dropped out and four candidates remained.
Activists also announced that while authorities brought a ballot box to Ward 4 of Tehran's Evin prison, housing numerous political prisoners, the prisoners abstained from voting.
Many, including several students, women's and youth organizations, and civil and political activists, have called for boycotting the presidential election. Over 500 teachers, union activists, and cultural figures publicly declared their abstention. Also, notable figures such as imprisoned Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi criticized the upcoming election, denouncing it as a facade orchestrated by an “oppressive regime.”
Friday's presidential election is the first after the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests in 2022, which marked a significant demand for secular governance, human rights, women's rights, and rational foreign policies in Iran.
Last year, following the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement that was triggered following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini while in the custody of the so-called morality police, Mousavi called for the end of clerical rule, which over 400 political activists and journalists supported. The state's subsequent killing of at least 550 protesters during its crackdown has been labeled a crime against humanity by a UN fact-finding mission.