UANI Top 10 Iran Sanctions Targets

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Kazem Gharibabadi, Secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights and Deputy Judiciary Chief for International Affairs

YOB: 1974

Kazem Gharibabadi is secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights and a deputy judiciary chief for international affairs. He previously served as Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Gharibabadi has recently threatened Iran International TV journalists who have been subject to harassment and terrorist plots by the Islamic Republic. This is a form of transnational repression. Gharibabadi should be sanctioned for human rights abuses by the United States and its allies.

Abbas Araghchi, Secretary of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations and likely incoming Foreign Minister

DOB: December 5, 1962

Abbas Araghchi is the secretary of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations and the former deputy foreign minister for political affairs of the Islamic Republic. He will reportedly become Iran’s next foreign minister under the presidency of Masoud Pezeshkian. A former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) once revealed Araghchi to be a member of the IRGC’s Quds Force, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and its units are under sanctions in the United Kingdom. This is consistent with the Islamic Republic placing IRGC operatives in diplomatic positions, using the Foreign Ministry as cover. Araghchi has represented Iran abroad at various international conferences, and his movements should be restricted in the United States and Europe given the IRGC’s threats to harm Western nationals. In May 2024, Araghchi also made a veiled threat that Iran could decide to develop nuclear weapons. The United States and its allies should sanction Araghchi. 

Mehdi Taeb, Head of the Ammar Headquarters

YOB: 1959

Mehdi Taeb is the head of the Ammar Headquarters in Iran, which is known as a think tank that is very close to the supreme leader. Taeb is a propagator of virulent antisemitism, including Holocaust denial and accusing the Jewish people of sorcery. He has engaged in disinformation regarding the coronavirus pandemic, charging that it was American made. The United States and its allies should sanction him.

Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei, Chief of Staff to President Masoud Pezeshkian

YOB: 1959

Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei is the chief of staff to Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian. He previously served as education minister in the administration of Hassan Rouhani. In 2019, Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei unveiled a new initiative called Project Mehr, which authorized schools to deny education to religious minority pupils. He said, “if students say they follow a faith other than the country’s official religions and this is seen as prosletyzing, they cannot continue attending school.” The United States and its allies should sanction him under human rights abuses authorities.

Javad Zarif, former Foreign Minister

DOB: January 8, 1960

Javad Zarif is the former foreign minister of the Islamic Republic. He served as chairman of the Strategic Transition Council for the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Throughout his career, Zarif has actively directed an Iranian influence operation to shape policy debates in the United States and Europe in directions which serve the Islamic Republic’s interests. He has whitewashed its crimes against humanity and through propaganda has provided space for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force terror operations. He is already sanctioned in the United States under Executive Order 13876. As it has done with other propagandists, the U.S. government should sanction him under Executive Order 13224 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist due to his services supporting the IRGC, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. Canada has also sanctioned Zarif. U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere should sanction him under their respective national authorities.

Seyed Ahmad Aboudatian, Deputy for Popular Organization, IRGC Baqiatallah Headquarters 

YOB: 1977-8 

Aboudatian is directly involved in human rights violations in Iran. As the deputy for popular organization, he is mandated to oversee the implementation of the IRGC Baqiatallah Headquarters’ overarching strategy: identifying, organizing, and mobilizing “Middle Ring” groups for the regime and for such groups to carry out “fire at will” political, cultural, and social operations at the local and neighborhood level. These operations include overseeing election engineering, as well as spearheading a new wave of violent Islamization on Iranian society, including Islamic morality policing.

Hossein Yahyahian, Deputy for Social Youth Movements at the IRGC Baqiatallah Headquarters 

Yahyahian is directly involved in human rights violations in Iran. As the deputy for social youth movements, he leads the IRGC Baqiatallah Headquarters’ efforts to manufacture a new hardline civil society and social constituency for the regime at the grassroots level and connect them to the upper echelons of power. To achieve this, he has a mandate to forcefully impose punishments on critics of the regime and those who are not compliant with the Islamic Republic’s Islamist ideals – what the regime regards as “spreading corruption.”

Amir-Reza Gholami, Deputy for Popular Intelligence at the IRGC Baqiatallah Headquarters

Gholami is directly involved in human rights violations in Iran. As deputy for popular intelligence, he is responsible for gathering intelligence penalizing individuals and entities not implementing the regime’s ideological social and cultural policies locally. To achieve this, Gholami has overseen the establishment of the so-called “Assembly of Popular Demanders” network across all of Iran’s 31 provinces. This network now operates as IRGC-backed ideological and Islamic morality enforcers, not least at the neighborhood level. Gholami’s network, which is designed to Islamize Iranian society and remove non-Islamic influences, has bolstered the regime’s morality policing and enforcement efforts, which had previously been the sole responsibility of the “Morality Police.”

Sassan Zare, Deputy for IRGC Baqiatallah Headquarters 

As deputy for the IRGC’s Baqiatallah Headquarters, Zare is directly part of the IRGC’s suppressive machinery and involved in human rights violations in Iran. He is one of the IRGC’s leading strategists responsible for spearheading a new violent wave of Islamization aimed at controlling behaviors and cultural activities, including the imposition of Islamic morality codes, assisting the Morality Police through the creation of new “fire at will” ideological enforcers. Zare is also a faculty member of the IRGC’s Imam Hossein University – a sanctioned entity – which is involved in nuclear, missile, chemical weapon, and military research. Zare is personally connected to the Office of the Supreme Leader and Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader’s son.

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IRGC Baqiatallah Headquarters (a.k.a IRGC Baqiatallah Cultural and Social Headquarters)

The Baqiatallah Headquarters, a shadowy arm of the IRGC that was exposed by UANI, is now acting as the IRGC’s main institution and apparatus for suppressive cultural and political operations. This includes election rigging in Iran and is ruthlessly spearheading the cultural engineering of Iranian society. The Baqiatallah Headquarters played a prominent role in rigging the 2024 parliamentary vote for the IRGC and Office of Supreme Leader.  It is directly involved in gross human rights violations in Iran, such as the violent enforcement of the compulsory hijab on Iranian women. For example, the Baqiatallah Headquarters is deeply involved in, and supportive of, a new “Morality Policing” strategy called “the Noor Plan,” which is being coordinated by the national police and Tehran Municipality. The Baqiatallah Headquarters’ networks and so-called “Fire at Will” groups have also been used as “hijab patrols” (hijab baans) in Tehran Municipality. The Baqiatallah Headquarters cyber apparatus also undertakes nefarious online operations for the IRGC – including major disinformation and doxing campaigns – and supporting IRGC radicalization efforts online.