Canada imposed another set of sanctions against people in Haiti for providing support to armed gangs in the country, Canada announced this week. The sanctions target three “high-profile members of the economic elite” in Haiti: Gilbert Bigio, Reynold Deeb and Sherif Abdallah. Canada said the people are using their status to “protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through money laundering and other acts of corruption.” Canada earlier this year sanctioned other Haitian political elites for supporting gangs (see 2211210026).
Canada recently imposed additional sanctions against Iran for its suppression of protesters, targeting four Iranian people and five entities “for their roles in the regime’s gross and systematic human rights violations and actions that continue to threaten international peace and security.” The sanctions target military officials Morteza Talaei and Hassan Karami; Ali Ghanaatkar Mavardiani, a senior judge prosecutor and interrogator; Iranian cargo and commercial airline Safiran Airport Services; technology research services company Baharestan Kish; and Javan News Agency. Also sanctioned were Paravar Pars Aerospace Engineering Services and Research, Design and Manufacturing of Aircraft Engines, and Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi.
The State Department maintained its designation of Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, it said in a notice. The agency said circumstances haven’t changed “in such a manner as to warrant revocation of the designation.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control added two Haitian politicians to its Specially Designated Nationals List in connection with drug trafficking, it said in a Dec. 2 news release. The action comes less than a month after the U.S. and Canada designated two other Haitian politicians (see 2211040064).
The U.S. on Nov. 30 sanctioned four people with ties to terrorist groups. The State Department said the designations target leaders of al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The four are Mufti Hazrat Deroji, Atif Yahya Ghouri, Muhammad Maruf and Osama Mehmood.
At least three vessels, including a Chinese-owned ship, have illegally exported Venezuelan oil and falsified cargo documents to conceal the oil’s origin, Reuters reported Nov. 30. The ships include the Chinese-owned supertanker Young Yong, sanctioned by the U.S. in November (see 2211030036), which loaded oil in Venezuela last year before sailing to the Chinese port of Qingdao with cargo documents that stated the oil was from Malaysia, the report said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control added three people and two companies to its Specially Designated Nationals List for providing financial services and facilitating weapons procurement for Hezbollah, the agency said Dec. 1.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned three people for being members of the Workers’ Party of Korea and helping North Korea develop weapons of mass restriction and ballistic missiles. The designations target Jon Il Ho, Yu Jin and Kim Su Gil, OFAC said. Brian Nelson, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the sanctions were in response to North Korean missile launches (see Ref:2211070016]).
President Joe Biden signed a memorandum this week stating that the administration will use sanctions, as well as other penalties, to respond to “conflict-related sexual violence” (CRSV). The White House said it will look to designate perpetrators of sexual violence crimes associated with conflicts and give those designations “equal consideration alongside other serious human rights abuses.”
The U.S. plans to use Magnitsky-style human rights sanctions to penalize “environmental criminals” responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, Reuters reported Nov. 23. Although U.S. officials have discussed with Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva his plans to tackle climate change, there are still “question marks about how he views the plan,” the report said. The U.S. could use sanctions to limit people from using the international financial system to further deforestation, the report said, and could designate “major deforesters" and “perpetrators of other environmental crimes such as illegal gold mining.” The White House didn’t comment.