US hits Iran 'journalist interrogators' with sanctions

The United States placed sanctions Wednesday on Iranian state media journalists it said took part in broadcasted "forced confessions" of people targeted by the government.

The US Treasury called Ali Rezvani and Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) "interrogator journalists," saying they cooperated with state internal security and intelligence bodies in extracting confessions from detained activists and dual nationals accused of spying.

Rezvani and Zabihpour "both feature prominently in the IRIB's notorious 8:30 broadcast, which regularly airs forced confessions," the Treasury said.

According to one of three labor activists featured in a 2019 episode who underwent "hours of physical and mental torture," Zabihpour was in the interrogation room with a text the subject was to read on camera, according to a Treasury statement.

The Treasury said Rezvani was named as an interrogator of environmentalist Kavous Seyed-Emami, who died in February 2018 while in government custody.

It also said that in 2020 Rezvani interviewed Ruhollah Zam, an exiled dissident Iranian journalist, before his execution. Zam was allegedly seized in Iraq in 2019 and forcibly returned to Iran to stand trial.

The Treasury named four other IRIB officials, including director Peyman Jebelli, to its sanctions blacklist for their roles in the forced confession programs and other operations.

"IRIB and its subsidiaries act not as objective media outlets but rather as a critical tool in the Iranian government’s mass suppression and censorship campaign against its own people," the Treasury said.

"IRIB uses forced confessions, in particular, to frame dual nationals and foreigners as spies, demonize human rights activists, and legitimize repression against religious minority groups like the Baha'i community."

The sanctions block any assets those named might have under US jurisdiction and forbid US individuals or entities from doing business with them.