HUNT Act, Sanctioning Agents, Banks Targeting Iranian Dissidents, Introduced in US Senate
Bill, sponsored by Sens. Toomey and Cardin and named for journalist targeted in kidnapping plot, applies sanctions to individual Iranian agents who will no longer be able to hide behind their government
It’s called the HUNT Act. Masih Alinejad feels it’s appropriate. The Iranian American journalist and Islamic Republic dissident was the target of an audacious Iranian kidnapping plot on New York City soil, as revealed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation this summer.
The Masih Alinejad Harassment and Unlawful Targeting (HUNT) Act of 2021 was introduced on Thursday in Washington. The bipartisan effort, led by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) seeks to sanction Iranian agents and related banks involved in operations targeting Iranian or US citizens who oppose the regime within Iran or abroad.
The introduction of the legislation comes in the shadows of ongoing indirect negotiations in Vienna between the US and Iran regarding re-entry into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 by Tehran, Washington and other world powers, and which was thrown into chaotic uncertainty following US withdrawal from the deal in 2018.
The legislation would mandate sanctions on Iranian government officials and agents – including those affiliated with proxies such as Hizbullah – who “are knowingly responsible for, complicit in or involved in ordering, conspiring, planning or implementing the surveillance, harassment, kidnapping, illegal extradition, imprisonment, torture, killing, or assassination of citizens of Iran (including citizens of Iran of dual nationality) or citizens of the United States inside or outside Iran” who seek to expose corruption or defend human rights. But those sponsoring the bill say there is a critical new element that they feel won’t just serve as a punishing mechanism but as a deterrent.
“What this legislation does is it requires the State Department to identify the individuals that are guilty of carrying out this repression and then – and this is an important new element – banks doing business with those people would be subject to sanctions. They are not mandatory sanctions but it would be available to impose sanctions on financial institutions. This is important because not only do these people repress their own people and not only do they engage in this malign activity but they usually have a way, through their own personal corruption, of getting some of their wealth out of Iran, into either American or European banks, so that their fortune is safe and secure outside of their own regime,” Toomey’s office wrote to The Media Line.
“There’s no mainstream Western bank in the world that wants to be subject to US sanctions. And so, it creates a powerful incentive for reputable institutions around the world not to do business with anybody who shows up on this list. Is that going to be sufficient to modify their behavior? I hope so. There’s no guarantees. But at a minimum, we have to take this step to make it very, very clear just how outrageously unacceptable their behavior has been,” said the statement.
Some may wonder whether the shocking plot to kidnap Alinejad may show that the Iranian regime doesn’t care about consequences. While the HUNT sanctions may have a punitive impact, Cardin believes they can reasonably be expected to change individual behavior, as well.
The new bill is in the mold of the Magnitsky Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Cardin and the late Republican Senator John McCain, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012. The Magnitsky Act aimed to directly punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. Since 2016, the bill, which applies globally, authorizes the US government to sanction those it sees as human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the US.
“Like Magnitsky, these are sanctions targeted at individuals – agents of the regime – to give them a warning that they personally will not be able to hide behind their government. It also would create some disincentives to follow orders. The secondary sanctions against financial institutions also will crimp the ability of any individuals designated to do business and so will shrink their ability to travel and such,” a Cardin spokesperson told The Media Line.
“This bill is one of a growing range of constraints on bad behavior by Iran. During the Obama Administration, it became clear that comprehensive sanctions did drive the government in Tehran to come to the table to negotiate on their nuclear program. So, Iran and Iranian officials are affected by sanctions and can be pressured to change behavior,” the spokesperson said.
Ironically, Alinejad revealed she had to leave a safe house in order to come to Washington on Thursday for the legislation’s unveiling. She told The Media Line that even in the aftermath of the revelation of the kidnapping plot, she has been forced to seek shelter due to continuing, credible threats against her.
“A lot of people think that when the FBI announced the kidnapping plot in July, so then it was the end. It was not. Since that, I was twice forced to leave my house and go to different safe houses. Kidnapping, torturing and murdering – it becomes like diplomacy for the Islamic Republic. It’s in the DNA of the Islamic Republic. That is why I call on all Democrats and Republicans to see human rights violations as a bipartisan issue,” Alinejad told The Media Line.
While Alinejad may be the legislation’s namesake, the bill’s text enumerates a range of other Iranian foreign operations targeting enemies of the regime in recent years, including surveillance of the Hillel and Chabad centers at the University of Chicago in 2020, a plot in Ethiopia to attack Israeli citizens in 2021 and the collection of information in Germany in 2018 about the local Jewish community, including kindergartens.
The bill is being introduced in the midst of nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna, which Toomey criticized multiple times during his remarks. Toomey, though, denied that the bill is linked to those negotiations.
“What our bill would do is impose mandatory sanctions against agents of Tehran who target critics of the Iranian regime and it would dry up sources for financing transnational repression, by authorizing secondary sanctions on banks that do business with those designated agents. As the administration is discussing economic relief with Iran this week in Vienna, I’m glad to be here with Senator Cardin, working to hold Iran accountable and to demonstrate that human rights and US national security interests have to be paramount and cannot be sacrificed for a flaw nuclear deal,” said Toomey.
Cardin, who voted against the JCPOA’s passage, emphasized the need for “maximum pressure” on Iran to prevent it from reaching nuclear capability and compel it to reach a permanent agreement, said the legislation is important because it addresses areas that the nuclear agreement did not. While the Biden Administration originally claimed it would pursue and demand a “longer, stronger” deal with Iran that would cover areas such as human rights, ballistic missile testing and menacing activities throughout the region, it has since reportedly offered a number of concessions and a possible “mini-deal” to bring Iran back into the JCPOA fold.
“We spend a lot of time concerned about their nuclear program, as we should. We have to recognize that Iran is violating their commitments to the international community in regards to trying to become a nuclear weapon state and we take action against them for that. We’ll continue to do that. But, we also have to recognize that Iran is an international sponsor of terrorism and it’s violated international commitments. As it relates to human rights of its own people that are living in Iran, as well as trying to reach outside of its borders in order to kidnap individuals and to violate their rights, that cannot go unchallenged,” said Cardin.
“My purpose in this is not to try to have a secondary effect on negotiations that are underway. I am deeply skeptical about the negotiations that are underway. I will acknowledge that. But the message I want to send is to the Iranian regime, to the bad actors in Tehran who are guilty and complicit in this outrageous behavior. And I’ll point out that this is one of the areas I had concerns with the JCPOA. It was limited to the nuclear issues and didn’t deal with the other issues, and I raised that at the time as one of my major concerns. So, I am pleased that we are now dealing with other aspects of nefarious activities by the current regime,” said Cardin.
Alinejad said that the legislation is being introduced at exactly the right time, in order to send a signal both to the Iranian regime and to the Biden Administration.
“If you don’t show them that all the murdering, kidnapping, torturing and oppressing your people, suppressing peaceful protest, is not going to have a consequence, how you can trust them? So, I have a simple demand: You cannot separate human rights from nuclear talk. If you do that, then you have to face these domestic extremists in your own land,” Alinejad said.
“It breaks my heart when I see Democrats saying that they’re for human rights, Republicans saying that they respect freedom of speech. Now, this is the time you have to get together and ask your allies from European countries and ask the Islamic Republic to release all the innocent political prisoners. If you really don’t care about Iranians, there are Swedish citizens, French citizens, the US citizens the UK, in Iranian prisons, and being used as a bargaining chip. Ask for their release and stand up for your own values,” she said.
Following Thursday’s press conference, Alinejad sidebarred with Cardin and Toomey and was reported to have said that the issue “needs more Democrats.” She expounded on those comments with The Media Line.
“I want to just give you an example about this issue that Democrats are not loud enough to condemn the brutality of the Islamic Republic. Imagine there is a law in the US saying that the Muslim minority should remove their hijab [a veil worn by certain Muslim women in the presence of any male outside of their immediate family, and compulsory in Iran] and then they would be able to go to school and get an education. What would be the reaction of [progressive Democratic Congresswoman] Ilhan Omar? What would be the reaction of AOC [progressive Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]? What would be the reaction of [House of Representatives Speaker] Nancy Pelosi? What would be the reaction of all Democrats? The travel ban happened, the Muslim ban happened. The burkini ban happened. They were loud enough to condemn it,” Alinejad said, referring to various government policies enacted in the US and elsewhere.
“But right now, the Islamic Republic says that girls from the age of 7 won’t be able to get an education if they don’t cover themselves. This should be condemned loudly by all the Democrats. Why do you keep silent? That breaks my heart and I call on all the Democrats: If you don’t take strong action against the gender-apartheid regime, and you don’t support your sisters, it is a double standard. None of the female Democrats are supporting my cause. Why? I condemned the burkini ban. I condemned the Muslim ban. Why do you keep silent?” Alinejad asked.
Cardin’s office says that Democrats in Congress do carry credibility on human rights issues, and Democrats are expected to get behind the HUNT Act.
“I can relay that Democrats in Congress, led by Senator Cardin, are very strong on human rights advocacy vis-à-vis Iran and the rest of the world. Senators Cardin and Toomey will be soliciting co-sponsors in both parties – and bipartisan partners in the House – next week,” Cardin’s spokesperson said.
The passage of any piece of legislation – even with bipartisan roots – is hardly a given based on the narrow margins in both the US House and Senate. Still, there appears to be room for optimism that the HUNT Act can reach President Joe Biden’s desk.
“Any time you have two senior senators across the aisle agree on national security legislation, you create a real possibility that it can get attached on a larger piece of legislation and passed into law. And although it has barely followed up on this pledge, the Biden Administration committed to penalize the Iranian regime for its support of terrorism, especially the targeting of U.S. citizens. Having Senator Cardin – the second-most senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – sign onto this bill is a strong message to the administration that they need to step up their game and place stronger consequences on Iran for its continued targeting of US citizens and officials,” Gabriel Noronha, former special advisor for the secretary’s Iran Action Group at the State Department, told The Media Line.
Toomey said he expects the bill to have “extremely broad support in the Senate” and that he is “cautiously optimistic given the early bipartisan support and what I think will be a broad consensus that we’ll be able to get this done.”
