The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury put five Iranian companies including Shahid Kharrazi Industries, Shahid Sani’khani Industries, Shahid Moqaddam Industries, Shahid Eslami Research Center and Shahid Shoushtari Industries on its sanction list for their role in Iran's missile program.
The new Iranian entities have been sanctioned under the executive order 13382. The act, signed by the President on June 29, 2005, is an authority aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters, and isolating them financially, according to the US Department of State website.
According to the US Treasury Department, these five Iranian entities are owned or controlled by an industrial company (Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group) that is responsible for the development and production of ballistic missiles with solid fuel in Iran.
According to the sanctions, any property belonging to these five Iranian institutions in the territory of the United States will be blocked and American citizens are prohibited from dealing with them.
In another attempt by US government to interfere in Iranian internal affairs, the US Department of State has once again blacklisted Iran as one of the violators of religious freedom.
On Thursday, the US State Department placed Iran along with Burma, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, Sudan and China as violators of religious freedom, while putting Pakistan on a special watch list for “severe violations of religious freedom.”
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