A top Iranian rights official said on Wednesday those who have been victimized by the West’s unilateral sanctions against Iran should file lawsuits against the sanction enforcers in international and Western courts.
Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, made the remarks at a conference on the “impacts of cruel sanctions on patients’ health” in the Iranian capital Tehran, according to the Mizan news agency of the Iranian judiciary.
Describing the U.S.-led Western sanctions as “crimes against humanity,” he called on the relevant Iranian authorities to allocate a special budget to support the victims in filing lawsuits against the enforcers in the international courts as well as the courts in the sanction-imposing countries.
Gharibabadi also quoted a UN official as saying that the sanctions have had a devastating impact on Iranian patients with rare diseases, including a fourfold rise in fatalities among Iranian patients suffering from thalassemia.
Iranian authorities have repeatedly said although the United States claims that humanitarian items, including medicine and foodstuff, are not included in the sanctions list, the embargoes on Iran’s oil exports and banking sector have, in practice, prevented the country from importing such goods.
