{"id":76349,"date":"2019-08-08T16:27:42","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T21:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/persian-heritage.com\/wordpress\/?p=76349"},"modified":"2019-08-08T16:27:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T21:27:42","slug":"us-silent-on-ousting-of-irans-sanctioned-fm-zarif-from-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2019\/08\/08\/us-silent-on-ousting-of-irans-sanctioned-fm-zarif-from-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"US Silent on Ousting of Iran’s Sanctioned FM Zarif From Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"WASHINGTON \u2014 A week after the U.S. sanctioned Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, raising the prospect of him losing access to U.S. social media platforms, U.S. officials and tech companies are mum on the issue. The Trump administration sanctioned Zarif on July 31 for having \u201cacted or purported to act\u201d on behalf of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom it sanctioned a month earlier as part of its \u201cmaximum pressure campaign\u201d against Tehran. A Treasury Department statement announcing the move<\/a> said Zarif was being sanctioned under President Donald Trump\u2019s June 24 executive order<\/a> blocking \u201call property and interests\u201d of Khamenei under U.S. jurisdiction, as well as those of anyone who has \u201cacted or purposed to act\u201d for him. Section 4 of the order imposes a \u201cprohibition\u201d on providing \u201cfunds, goods or services \u2026 to or for the benefit of any person\u201d whose property and interests are blocked pursuant to the order. The Treasury statement said the department\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also had added Zarif to its list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons<\/a>, known as an SDN list. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Treasury Department did not respond to a VOA Persian request for comment on whether the prohibition on providing \u201cservices\u201d to Zarif includes a ban on giving him access to U.S. social media platforms, including his Twitter<\/a> and Instagram <\/a>accounts.<\/p>\n

Followers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zarif has 1.2 million followers on Twitter and 729,000 followers on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. He has been active on both accounts in the days since his July 31 designation.<\/p>\n

In one post, Zarif asked if his designation means that \u201cU.S. persons need an “OFAC license to engage” with me by reading my writings or listening to interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n

After VOA Persian contacted the State Department regarding Zarif\u2019s access to U.S. social media platforms, a spokesperson provided this response: \u201cTwitter and Instagram are private companies. We refer you to them for questions on their handling of individual accounts.\u201d The spokesperson also referred VOA to the Treasury Department for any additional clarification.<\/p>\n

In a Thursday email, Twitter\u2019s global policy communications director, Ian Plunkett, responded to a question about Zarif\u2019s continued use of the platform by saying the company does not comment on individual accounts \u201cfor privacy and security reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate email a day earlier, Stephanie Otway, Instagram\u2019s policy communications manager, said the Facebook subsidiary also is unable to comment about Zarif\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

Possible violation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of Washington-based policy institute Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA Persian that he believes Facebook and Twitter both are violating U.S. sanctions by providing services to Zarif, a sanctioned person.<\/p>\n

\u201cZarif should be immediately expelled for legal reasons \u2014 not to mention moral reasons for using a platform (Twitter) that he and his regime deny to other Iranians,\u201d Dubowitz said in a message.<\/p>\n

In a sign of Congressional interest in the issue of Zarif\u2019s use of U.S. social media, Republican House member Lee Zeldin posted a Tuesday tweet saying he also believes Zarif\u2019s accounts should be blocked. In a message to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Zeldin said the company \u201cshouldn\u2019t provide its invaluable resource to (Zarif), designated Foreign Terrorist Orgs (organizations) & others like them for their propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran uses digital filters to block people from using Twitter and other Western social media platforms and messaging services, but it allows the use of Instagram. Many Iranians still have been able to access blocked services by using anti-filtering tools.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear if there is an informational exception in the sanctions program under which Zarif was designated that would allow him to keep his Twitter and Instagram accounts. Many U.S. sanctions programs carve out exceptions for designated people to engage in various types of information sharing, such as those involving noncommercial social media expression, news reports, books, articles and movies.<\/p>\n

Section 1 of the June 24 executive order said its prohibitions apply \u201cexcept to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order.\u201d The Treasury Department also did not respond to a question about whether such exceptions apply to Zarif\u2019s U.S. social media accounts.<\/p>\n

In a Thursday message to VOA Persian, a former U.S. official said that if the Trump administration believes social media services clearly are prohibited by the sanctions, it would have an obligation to say so, rather than to merely refer inquiries to the companies providing those services.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne could infer from that referral that the government may believe (the Zarif case) is a matter of reputational discretion within the scope of those companies\u2019 decision-making authority. But it is not entirely clear from the government\u2019s response,\u201d the former official said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see Facebook and Twitter having some pretty good debates out in California about how to handle this one, because you can make a pretty good case on either side of it,\u201d said Michael O\u2019Hanlon, Brookings Institution foreign policy research director, in a VOA Persian interview. \u201cMy guess is that it is actually in a gray area that is going to require some judgment and perhaps even some disputes between those companies and the U.S. government before all is said and done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 A week after the U.S. sanctioned Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, raising the prospect of him losing access to U.S. social media platforms, U.S. officials and tech companies are mum on the issue. The Trump administration sanctioned Zarif on July 31 for having \u201cacted or purported to act\u201d on behalf of Iranian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}