Masih Alinejad Harassment and Unlawful Targeting Act of 2021 or the Masih Alinejad HUNT Act of 2021
This bill imposes sanctions on foreign persons (i.e., individuals or entities) that are acting on behalf of Iran's government and involved in the harassment of certain individuals, such as human rights activists.
The Department of State must periodically report to Congress the identities of foreign persons acting on behalf of Iran's government that are knowingly responsible for or complicit in the surveillance, harassment, imprisonment, or killing of citizens of Iran or the United States who seek to (1) expose corruption or illegal activity by Iranian government officials; (2) obtain, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights; or (3) obtain, defend, or promote the rights and well-being of women, religious and ethnic minorities, and the LGBTQ community in Iran. The report must include foreign persons involved in such actions that occur inside or outside Iran.
The President must impose property-blocking sanctions on persons identified in the report, as well as visa-blocking sanctions on the identified individuals.
The Department of the Treasury must submit to Congress a report identifying any foreign financial institution that knowingly conducts a significant transaction with a person sanctioned under this bill. Treasury may prohibit the opening, or prohibit or impose strict conditions on the maintaining of a U.S. correspondent account or a payable-through account by such a financial institution.
[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3347 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
<DOC>
117th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 3347
To identify and impose sanctions with respect to persons who are
responsible for or complicit in abuses toward dissidents on behalf of
the Government of Iran.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
December 8, 2021
Mr. Toomey (for himself, Mr. Cardin, and Ms. Rosen) introduced the
following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on
Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To identify and impose sanctions with respect to persons who are
responsible for or complicit in abuses toward dissidents on behalf of
the Government of Iran.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Masih Alinejad Harassment and
Unlawful Targeting Act of 2021'' or the ``Masih Alinejad HUNT Act of
2021''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran
surveils, harasses, terrorizes, tortures, abducts, and murders
individuals who peacefully defend human rights and freedoms in Iran,
and innocent entities and individuals considered by the Government of
Iran to be enemies of that regime, including United States citizens on
United States soil, and takes foreign nationals hostage, including in
the following instances:
(1) In 2021, Iranian intelligence agents were indicted for
plotting to kidnap United States citizen, women's rights
activist, and journalist Masih Alinejad, from her home in New
York City, in retaliation for exercising her rights under the
First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Iranian agents allegedly spent at least approximately half a
million dollars to capture the outspoken critic of the
authoritarianism of the Government of Iran, and studied
evacuating her by military-style speedboats to Venezuela before
rendition to Iran.
(2) Prior to the New York kidnapping plot, Ms. Alinejad's
family in Iran was instructed by authorities to lure Ms.
Alinejad to Turkey. In an attempt to intimidate her into
silence, the Government of Iran arrested 3 of Ms. Alinejad's
family members in 2019, and sentenced her brother to 8 years in
prison for refusing to denounce her.
(3) According to Federal prosecutors, the same Iranian
intelligence network that allegedly plotted to kidnap Ms.
Alinejad is also targeting critics of the Government of Iran
who live in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab
Emirates.
(4) In 2021, an Iranian diplomat was convicted in Belgium
of attempting to carry out a 2018 bombing of a dissident rally
in France.
(5) In 2021, a Danish high court found a Norwegian citizen
of Iranian descent guilty of illegal espionage and complicity
in a failed plot to kill an Iranian Arab dissident figure in
Denmark.
(6) In 2021, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
appealed to the United Nations to protect BBC Persian employees
in London who suffer regular harassment and threats of
kidnapping by Iranian government agents.
(7) In 2021, 15 militants allegedly working on behalf of
the Government of Iran were arrested in Ethiopia for plotting
to attack citizens of Israel, the United States, and the United
Arab Emirates, according to United States officials.
(8) In 2020, Iranian agents allegedly kidnapped United
States resident and Iranian-German journalist Jamshid Sharmahd,
while he was traveling to India through Dubai. Iranian
authorities announced they had seized Mr. Sharmahd in ``a
complex operation'', and paraded him blindfolded on state
television. Mr. Sharmahd is arbitrarily detained in Iran,
allegedly facing the death penalty. In 2009, Mr. Sharmahd was
the target of an alleged Iran-directed assassination plot in
Glendora, California.
(9) In 2020, the Government of Turkey released
counterterrorism files exposing how Iranian authorities
allegedly collaborated with drug gangs to kidnap Habib Chabi,
an Iranian-Swedish activist for Iran's Arab minority. In 2020,
the Government of Iran allegedly lured Mr. Chabi to Istanbul
through a female agent posing as a potential lover. Mr. Chabi
was then allegedly kidnapped from Istanbul, and smuggled into
Iran where he faces execution, following a sham trial.
(10) In 2020, a United States-Iranian citizen and an
Iranian resident of California pleaded guilty to charges of
acting as illegal agents of the Government of Iran by
surveilling Jewish student facilities, including the Hillel
Center and Rohr Chabad Center at the University of Chicago, in
addition to surveilling and collecting identifying information
about United States citizens and nationals who are critical of
the Iranian regime.
(11) In 2019, 2 Iranian intelligence officers at the
Iranian consulate in Turkey allegedly orchestrated the
assassination of Iranian dissident journalist Masoud Molavi
Vardanjani, who was shot while walking with a friend in
Istanbul. Unbeknownst to Mr. Molavi, his ``friend'' was in fact
an undercover Iranian agent and the leader of the killing
squad, according to a Turkish police report.
(12) In 2019, around 1,500 people were allegedly killed
amid a less than 2 week crackdown by security forces on anti-
government protests across Iran, including at least an alleged
23 children and 400 women.
(13) In 2019, Iranian operatives allegedly lured Paris-
based Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam to Iraq, where he was
abducted, and hanged in Iran for sedition.
(14) In 2019, a Kurdistan regional court convicted an
Iranian female for trying to lure Voice of America reporter Ali
Javanmardi to a hotel room in Irbil, as part of a foiled
Iranian intelligence plot to kidnap and extradite Mr.
Javanmardi, a critic of the Government of Iran.
(15) In 2019, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents
visited the rural Connecticut home of Iran-born United States
author and poet Roya Hakakian to warn her that she was the
target of an assassination plot orchestrated by the Government
of Iran.
(16) In 2019, the Government of Denmark accused the
Government of Iran of directing the assassination of Iranian
Arab activist Ahmad Mola Nissi, in The Hague, and the
assassination of another opposition figure, Reza Kolahi Samadi,
who was murdered near Amsterdam in 2015.
(17) In 2018, German security forces searched for 10
alleged spies who were working for Iran's al-Quds Force to
collect information on targets related to the local Jewish
community, including kindergartens.
(18) In 2017, Germany convicted a Pakistani man for working
as an Iranian agent to spy on targets including a former German
lawmaker and a French-Israeli economics professor.
(19) In 2012, an Iranian American pleaded guilty to
conspiring with members of the Iranian military to bomb a
popular Washington, DC, restaurant with the aim of
assassinating the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United
States.
(20) In 1996, agents of the Government of Iran allegedly
assassinated 5 Iranian dissident exiles across Turkey,
Pakistan, and Baghdad, over a 5-month period that year.
(21) In 1992, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the
United Kingdom expelled 2 Iranians employed at the Iranian
Embassy in London and a third Iranian on a student visa amid
allegations they were plotting to kill Indian-born British
American novelist Salman Rushdie, pursuant to the fatwa issued
by then supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
(22) In 1992, 4 Iranian Kurdish dissidents were
assassinated at a restaurant in Berlin, Germany, allegedly by
Iranian agents.
(23) In 1992, singer, actor, poet, and gay Iranian
dissident Fereydoun Farrokhzad was found dead with multiple
stab wounds in his apartment in Germany. His death is allegedly
the work of Iran-directed agents.
(24) In 1980, Ali Akbar Tabatabaei, a leading critic of
Iran and then president of the Iran Freedom Foundation, was
murdered in front of his Bethesda, Maryland, home by an
assassin disguised as a postal courier. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation had identified the ``mailman'' as Dawud
Salahuddin, born David Theodore Belfield. Mr. Salahuddin was
working as a security guard at an Iranian interest office in
Washington, DC, when he claims he accepted the assignment and
payment of $5,000 from the Government of Iran to kill Mr.
Tabatabaei.
(25) Other exiled Iranian dissidents alleged to have been
victims of the Government of Iran's murderous extraterritorial
campaign include Shahriar Shafiq, Shapour Bakhtiar, and Gholam
Ali Oveissi.
(26) Iranian Americans face an ongoing campaign of
intimidation both in the virtual and physical world by agents
and affiliates of the Government of Iran, which aims to stifle
freedom of expression and eliminate the threat Iranian
authorities believe democracy, justice, and gender equality
pose to their rule.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Admission; admitted; alien.--The terms ``admission'',
``admitted'', and ``alien'' have the meanings given those terms
in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C.
1101).
(2) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term
``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
(A) the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the
Senate; and
(B) the Committee on Financial Services and the
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of
Representatives.
(3) Correspondent account; payable-through account.--The
terms ``correspondent account'' and ``payable-through account''
have the meanings given those terms in section 5318A of title
31, United States Code.
(4) Foreign financial institution.--The term ``foreign
financial institution'' has the meaning of that term as
determined by the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to section
104(i) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and
Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(i)).
(5) Foreign person.--The term ``foreign person'' means any
individual or entity that is not a United States person.
(6) United states person.--The term ``United States
person'' means--
(A) a United States citizen or an alien lawfully
admitted for permanent residence to the United States;
or
(B) an entity organized under the laws of the
United States or any jurisdiction within the United
States, including a foreign branch of such an entity.
SEC. 4. REPORT AND IMPOSITION OF SANCTIONS WITH RESPECT TO PERSONS WHO
ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OR COMPLICIT IN ABUSES TOWARD
DISSIDENTS ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT OF IRAN.
(a) Report Required.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 45 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State, in
consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director
of National Intelligence, and the Attorney General, shall
submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report
that--
(A) includes a detailed description and assessment
of--
(i) the state of human rights and the rule
of law inside Iran, including the rights and
well-being of women, religious and ethnic
minorities, and the LGBTQ community in Iran;
(ii) actions taken by the Government of
Iran during the year preceding submission of
the report to target and silence dissidents
both inside and outside of Iran who advocate
for human rights inside Iran;
(iii) the methods used by the Government of
Iran to target and silence dissidents both
inside and outside of Iran; and
(iv) the means through which the Government
of Iran finances efforts to target and silence
dissidents both inside and outside of Iran;
(B) identifies foreign persons working as part of
the Government of Iran or acting on behalf of that
Government (including members of paramilitary
organizations such as Ansar-e-Hezbollah and Basij-e
Mostaz'afin), that the Secretary of State determines,
based on credible evidence, are knowingly responsible
for, complicit in or involved in ordering, conspiring,
planning or implementing the surveillance, harassment,
kidnapping, illegal extradition, imprisonment, torture,
killing, or assassination of citizens of Iran
(including citizens of Iran of dual nationality) or
citizens of the United States inside or outside Iran
who seek--
(i) to expose illegal or corrupt activity
carried out by officials of the Government of
Iran;
(ii) to obtain, exercise, defend, or
promote internationally recognized human rights
and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion,
expression, association, and assembly, and the
rights to a fair trial and democratic
elections, in Iran; or
(iii) to obtain, exercise, defend, or
promote the rights and well-being of women,
religious and ethnic minorities, and the LGBTQ
community in Iran; and
(C) includes, for each foreign person identified
subparagraph (B), a clear explanation for why the
foreign person was so identified.
(2) Updates of report.--The report required by paragraph
(1) shall be updated, and the updated version submitted to the
appropriate congressional committees, during the 10-year period
following the date of the enactment of this Act--
(A) not less frequently than annually; and
(B) with respect to matters relating to the
identification of foreign persons under paragraph
(1)(B), on an ongoing basis as new information becomes
available.
(3) Form of report.--
(A) In general.--Each report required by paragraph
(1) and each update required by paragraph (2) shall be
submitted in unclassified form but may include a
classified annex.
(B) Public availability.--The Secretary of State
shall post the unclassified portion of each report
required by paragraph (1) and each update required by
paragraph (2) on a publicly available internet website
of the Department of State.
(b) Imposition of Sanctions.--In the case of a foreign person
identified under paragraph (1)(B) of subsection (a) in the most recent
report or update submitted under that subsection, the President shall--
(1) if the foreign person meets the criteria for the
imposition of sanctions under subsection (a) of section 1263 of
the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (subtitle
F of title XII of Public Law 114-328; 22 U.S.C. 2656 note),
impose sanctions under subsection (b) of that section; and
(2) if the foreign person does not meet such criteria,
impose the sanctions described in subsection (c).
(c) Sanctions Described.--The sanctions to be imposed under this
subsection with respect to a foreign person are the following:
(1) Blocking of property.--The President shall exercise all
powers granted to the President by the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) to the extent
necessary to block and prohibit all transactions in all
property and interests in property of the person if such
property and interests in property are in the United States,
come within the United States, or are or come within the
possession or control of a United States person.
(2) Ineligibility for visas, admission, or parole.--
(A) In general.--
(i) Visas, admission, or parole.--An alien
described in subsection (a)(1)(B) is--
(I) inadmissible to the United
States;
(II) ineligible to receive a visa
or other documentation to enter the
United States; and
(III) otherwise ineligible to be
admitted or paroled into the United
States or to receive any other benefit
under the Immigration and Nationality
Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.).
(ii) Current visas revoked.--
(I) In general.--The visa or other
entry documentation of an alien
described in subsection (a)(1)(B) shall
be revoked, regardless of when such
visa or other entry documentation is or
was issued.
(II) Immediate effect.--A
revocation under subclause (I) shall--
(aa) take effect
immediately; and
(bb) automatically cancel
any other valid visa or entry
documentation that is in the
alien's possession.
(d) Termination of Sanctions.--The President may terminate the
application of sanctions under this section with respect to a person if
the President determines and reports to the appropriate congressional
committees, not later than 15 days before the termination of the
sanctions that--
(1) credible information exists that the person did not
engage in the activity for which sanctions were imposed;
(2) the person has been prosecuted appropriately for the
activity for which sanctions were imposed; or
(3) the person has--
(A) credibly demonstrated a significant change in
behavior;
(B) has paid an appropriate consequence for the
activity for which sanctions were imposed; and
(C) has credibly committed to not engage in an
activity described in subsection (a) in the future.
SEC. 5. REPORT AND IMPOSITION OF SANCTIONS WITH RESPECT TO FOREIGN
FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS CONDUCTING SIGNIFICANT
TRANSACTIONS WITH PERSONS RESPONSIBLE FOR OR COMPLICIT IN
ABUSES TOWARD DISSIDENTS ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT OF
IRAN.
(a) Report Required.--
(1) In general.--Not earlier than 30 days and not later
than 60 days after the Secretary of State submits to the
appropriate congressional committees a report required by
section 4(a), the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation
with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the appropriate
congressional committees a report that identifies any foreign
financial institution that knowingly conducts a significant
transaction with a foreign person identified in the report
submitted under section 4(a).
(2) Form of report.--
(A) In general.--Each report required by paragraph
(1) shall be submitted in unclassified form but may
include a classified annex.
(B) Public availability.--The Secretary of the
Treasury shall post the unclassified portion of each
report required by paragraph (1) on a publicly
available internet website of the Department of the
Treasury.
(b) Imposition of Sanctions.--The Secretary of the Treasury may
prohibit the opening, or prohibit or impose strict conditions on the
maintaining, in the United States of a correspondent account or a
payable-through account by a foreign financial institution identified
under subsection (a)(1).
SEC. 6. EXCEPTIONS; WAIVERS; IMPLEMENTATION.
(a) Exceptions.--
(1) Exception for intelligence, law enforcement, and
national security activities.--Sanctions under sections 4 and 5
shall not apply to any authorized intelligence, law
enforcement, or national security activities of the United
States.
(2) Exception to comply with united nations headquarters
agreement.--Sanctions under section 4(c)(2) shall not apply
with respect to the admission of an alien to the United States
if the admission of the alien is necessary to permit the United
States to comply with the Agreement regarding the Headquarters
of the United Nations, signed at Lake Success June 26, 1947,
and entered into force November 21, 1947, between the United
Nations and the United States, the Convention on Consular
Relations, done at Vienna April 24, 1963, and entered into
force March 19, 1967, or other applicable international
obligations.
(b) National Security Waiver.--The President may waive the
application of sanctions under section 4 with respect to a person if
the President--
(1) determines that the waiver is in the national security
interests of the United States; and
(2) submits to the appropriate congressional committees a
report on the waiver and the reasons for the waiver.
(c) Implementation; Penalties.--
(1) Implementation.--The President may exercise all
authorities provided to the President under sections 203 and
205 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50
U.S.C. 1702 and 1704) to carry out this Act.
(2) Penalties.--A person that violates, attempts to
violate, conspires to violate, or causes a violation of section
4(b)(1) or 5(b) or any regulation, license, or order issued to
carry out either such section shall be subject to the penalties
set forth in subsections (b) and (c) of section 206 of the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1705) to
the same extent as a person that commits an unlawful act
described in subsection (a) of that section.
SEC. 7. EXCEPTION RELATING TO IMPORTATION OF GOODS.
(a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act,
the authorities and requirements to impose sanctions under this Act
shall not include the authority or a requirement to impose sanctions on
the importation of goods.
(b) Good Defined.--In this section, the term ``good'' means any
article, natural or manmade substance, material, supply or manufactured
product, including inspection and test equipment, and excluding
technical data.
<all>
Introduced in Senate
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
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