“It is evident that the Iranian authorities is afraid of its personal individuals,” Blinken stated in an announcement. “Mahsa Amini is senselessly, tragically useless, and now the federal government is violently suppressing peaceable protesters rightly offended about her loss.”
Blinken stated the Treasury Department has issued a common license, which authorizes sure transactions which might in any other case be prohibited below sanctions, “to advance our efforts and commitments to make sure that the Iranian individuals can freely entry info on-line.”
“We are taking this step towards a stark backdrop,” he stated. “The Iranian authorities has lower off entry to the Internet for many of its 80 million residents to forestall them — and the world — from watching its violent crackdown on peaceable protestors.”
“(W)e are going to assist make sure that the Iranian individuals are not saved remoted and at midnight. This is a concrete step to supply significant assist to Iranians demanding that their primary rights be revered,” he stated.
According to the Treasury Department, the final license expands the classes of software program and providers that may be supplied “to incorporate social media platforms, collaboration platforms, video conferencing, in addition to cloud-based providers,” provides “extra authorization for the providers that assist the communication instruments to help abnormal Iranians in resisting repressive web censorship and surveillance instruments deployed by the Iranian regime,” and “removes the requirement to confirm communications are ‘private’ in nature.”
It additionally “continues to authorize anti-virus and anti-malware software program; anti-tracking software program; cell working methods and associated software program; anti-censorship instruments and associated software program; Virtual Private Network (VPN) shopper software program; and associated software program,” noting that “these instruments shield the power of Iranians to interact in free expression and bravely resist regime oppression,” the Treasury stated.
The announcement comes a day after the US issued sanctions on Iran’s Morality Police, in whose custody Amiri died.