Iran rights group condemns US criminal sanctions
A top Iranian human rights council has strongly condemned recent US sanctions on Iranian financial system and banks, noting that by curtailing the country’s access to medicine and other humanitarian equipment, Washington’s sanctions are taking direct aim at Iranian people’s lives and health.
Enforcement and intensification of unjust, illegal and inhuman sanctions by the US regime and their implementation by certain European countries ... have not only caused problems for Iran's normal economic, financial and banking relations [with other countries], but also made purchase of drugs, diagnostic kits, and laboratory equipment practically impossible amid difficult conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic," Iranian Judiciary's High Council for Human Rights said in a statement on Sunday.
On Thursday, the United States targeted Iran's financial sector by imposing sanctions on 18 Iranian banks with the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claiming that the US sanctions would "stop illicit access to US dollars."
The Trump administration has claimed humanitarian goods are exempt from its sanction, but a web of sanctions tied around Iran over years has made foreign banks and companies extremely wary of engaging in any trade with the country.