United States Sanctions 40 Individuals and Entities from Nine Countries for Human Rights Violations and Corrupt Practices

The United States Treasury Department announced on Friday new stravel bans and asset freezes against 40 individuals and organizations from nine countries from all over the world forhuman rights abuses and corrupt practicescoinciding with the commemorations of International Anti-Corruption Day and Human Rights Day on Friday and Saturday respectively.

These sanctions are part of the so-called Magnitsky Global Human Rights Accountability Act by which the United States declares itself capable of prosecuting, unilaterally, foreign citizens accused of acts of corruption or violations of fundamental rights.

Among the sanctioned entities, for example, the General Bureau of Border Guards of the Ministry of State Security of North Korea, complicit in practices of “forced labor, torture and other violations and abuses of human rights at the hands of the government”.

The United States has also sanctioned two Chinese officials on policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region, one of them, the director of the Tibetan Public Security Bureau (the “de facto” police chief), Zhang Hongbo, implicated in “serious human rights violations, including in the centers of detention facilities run by the TPSB, marked by the torture, physical abuse and murder of prisoners”.

In addition, the United States has sanctioned all 15 members of the Russian National Election Commission for contributing to the celebration of fraudulent elections, Already several officials involved, during the invasion of Ukraine, in the so-called “acts of filtration”: interrogations and searches against the Ukrainian civilian population in the territories occupied by Russia.