IRGC brigadier general and family banned from US under Iran sanctions

The US Department of State has designated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brig.-Gen. Hassan Shahvarpour, Khuzestan Province’s Vali Asr Commander, for his involvement in gross violations of human rights against protesters during the November protests in Mahshahr, Iran.The action makes both Shahvarpour and his immediate family ineligible for entry into the US. In December, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a range of new sanctions against the Iranian regime, which included the threat to ban Iranian officials and their families from travelling to the US. "Thugs killing people’s children will not be allowed to send their own children to study in the United States of America," Pompeo said at the time. Pompeo also announced during the same speech that the US was gathering evidence of human rights violations by the Iranian authorities directly from the Iranian people, after the regime tried to stifle them from speaking out by shutting down the internet. In a press release, the State Department announced on Saturday that it had gathered information via the Rewards for Justice tip-line and from multiple media reports that IRGC units under the command of Shahvarpour had killed as many as 148 Iranians. During the November 2019 protests by Iranians against the regime, "they [the units] encircled fleeing protesters in armored vehicles, firing machine guns into the crowd and lighting fire to the marsh in which the protesters took cover," the statement read.Consequently, the US was taking the action against Shahvarpour.Doing so "demonstrates the United States’ continued commitment to the Iranian people to support their demands for accountability from Iranian officials who committed serious human rights abuses against protesters in November 2019," the State Department said.They added: "The United States has heard the Iranian people, collected information submitted by ordinary Iranians through the Rewards for Justice tip-line, followed the evidence and has taken action against this abusive official whose actions are only one example of the many reported human rights violations which were perpetrated during the country-wide protests of November 2019 in Iran."Reuters contributed to this report.