- 30 July 2012
- 0 Comments
- Human Rights in Iran, Legislative Agenda, Sanctions, UN
It’s that time of year again–when Republicans and Democrats in Congress takes a break from wringing each other’s necks to pass a piece of legislation to “tighten the noose” around Iran just in time for campaign season.
For those just checking in, here’s an example of what our current sanctions are already doing on the ground in Iran (via Tehran Bureau):
The board of directors of the Iranian Hemophilia Society has informed the World Federation of Hemophilia that the lives of tens of thousands of children are being endangered by the lack of proper drugs, a consequence of international economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian Hemophilia Society notes that U.S., EU, and UN sanctions technically do not ban medical goods. In fact, there is a so-called “humanitarian exemption” in U.S. sanctions that is supposed to exempt humanitarian goods like medicine, medical goods, and food.
And yet medicine is not getting in to Iran as “sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran and the country’s other financial institutions have severely disrupted the purchase and transfer of medical goods.”
It turns out that imposing the broadest, most indiscriminate, crippling-est, noose tightening sanctions ever (did I miss anything in there?) means that a few piecemeal exemptions for food or medicine, or even Internet communication tools, don’t really stand up.