118THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 589
AN ACT
To impose sanctions on the Supreme Leader of Iran and
the President of Iran and their respective offices for
human rights abuses and support for terrorism.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 2
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 1
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Mahsa Amini Human 2
rights and Security Accountability Act’’ or the ‘‘MAHSA 3
Act’’. 4
SEC. 2. IMPOSITION OF SANCTIONS ON IRAN’S SUPREME 5
LEADER’S OFFICE, ITS APPOINTEES, AND ANY 6
AFFILIATED PERSONS. 7
(a) F
INDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 8
(1) The Supreme Leader is an institution of the 9
Islamic Republic of Iran. 10
(2) The Supreme Leader holds ultimate author-11
ity over Iran’s judiciary and security apparatus, in-12
cluding the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, 13
law enforcement forces under the Interior Ministry, 14
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and 15
the Basij, a nationwide volunteer paramilitary group 16
subordinate to the IRGC, all of which have engaged 17
in human rights abuses in Iran. Additionally the 18
IRGC, a United States designated Foreign Terrorist 19
Organization, which reports to the Supreme Leader, 20
continues to perpetrate terrorism around the globe, 21
including attempts to kill and kidnap American citi-22
zens on United States soil. 23
(3) The Supreme Leader appoints the head of 24
Iran’s judiciary. International observers continue to 25
criticize the lack of independence of Iran’s judicial 26 3
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system and maintained that trials disregarded inter-1
national standards of fairness. 2
(4) The revolutionary courts, created by Iran’s 3
former Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, within 4
Iran’s judiciary, are chiefly responsible for hearing 5
cases of political offenses, operate in parallel to 6
Iran’s criminal justice system and routinely hold 7
grossly unfair trials without due process, handing 8
down predetermined verdicts and rubberstamping 9
executions for political purpose. 10
(5) The Iranian security and law enforcement 11
forces engage in serious human rights abuse at the 12
behest of the Supreme Leader. 13
(6) Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi, sits at the 14
helm of the most sanctioned cabinet in Iranian his-15
tory which includes internationally sanctioned rights 16
violators. Raisi has supported the recent crackdown 17
on protestors and is a rights violator himself, having 18
served on a ‘‘death commission’’ in 1988 that led to 19
the execution of several thousand political prisoners 20
in Iran. He most recently served as the head of 21
Iran’s judiciary, a position appointed by Iran’s cur-22
rent Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and may likely 23
be a potential candidate to replace Khamenei as 24
Iran’s next Supreme Leader. 25 4
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(7) On September 16, 2022, a 22-year-old 1
woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the detention of the 2
Morality Police after being beaten and detained for 3
allegedly transgressing discriminatory dress codes 4
for women. This tragic incident triggered wide-5
spread, pro-women’s rights, pro-democracy protests 6
across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, calling for the end 7
to Iran’s theocratic regime. 8
(8) In the course of the protests, the Iranian 9
security forces’ violent crackdown includes mass ar-10
rests, well documented beating of protestors, throt-11
tling of the internet and telecommunications serv-12
ices, and shooting protestors with live ammunition. 13
Iranian security forces have reportedly killed hun-14
dreds of protestors and other civilians, including 15
women and children, and wounded many more. 16
(9) Iran’s Supreme Leader is the leader of the 17
‘‘Axis of Resistance’’, which is a network of 18
Tehran’s terror proxy and partner militias materially 19
supported by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 20
that targets the United States as well as its allies 21
and partners. 22
(b) S
ENSE OFCONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-23
gress that— 24 5
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(1) the United States shall stand with and sup-1
port the people of Iran in their demand for funda-2
mental human rights; 3
(2) the United States shall continue to hold the 4
Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly the Supreme 5
Leader and President, accountable for abuses of 6
human rights, corruption, and export of terrorism; 7
and 8
(3) Iran must immediately end its gross viola-9
tions of internationally recognized human rights. 10
(c) I
NGENERAL.— 11
(1) D
ETERMINATION AND REPORT RE -12
QUIRED.—Not later than 90 days after the date of 13
the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, 14
the President shall— 15
(A) determine whether each foreign person 16
described in subsection (d) meets the criteria 17
for imposition of sanctions under one or more 18
of the sanctions programs and authorities listed 19
in paragraph (2); 20
(B) impose applicable sanctions against 21
any foreign person determined to meet the cri-22
teria for imposition of sanctions pursuant to 23
subparagraph (A) under the sanctions programs 24
and authorities listed in subparagraph (A) or 25 6
•HR 589 EH
(F) of subsection (c)(2) and pursue applicable 1
sanctions against any foreign person deter-2
mined to meet the criteria for imposition of 3
sanctions pursuant to subparagraph (A) under 4
the sanctions programs and authorities listed in 5
subparagraph (B), (C), (D), or (E) of sub-6
section (c)(2); and 7
(C) submit to the appropriate congres-8
sional committees a report in unclassified form, 9
with a classified annex provided separately if 10
needed, containing— 11
(i) a list of all foreign persons de-12
scribed in subsection (d) that meet the cri-13
teria for imposition of sanctions under one 14
or more of the sanctions programs and au-15
thorities listed in paragraph (2); and 16
(ii) for each foreign person identified 17
pursuant to clause (i)— 18
(I) a list of each sanctions pro-19
gram or authority listed in paragraph 20
(2) for which the person meets the 21
criteria for imposition of sanctions; 22
(II) a statement which, if any, of 23
the sanctions authorized by any of the 24
sanctions programs and authorities 25 7
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identified pursuant to subclause (I) 1
have been imposed or will be imposed 2
within 30 days of the submission of 3
the report; and 4
(III) with respect to which any of 5
the sanctions authorized by any of the 6
sanctions programs and authorities 7
identified pursuant to subclause (I) 8
have not been imposed and will not be 9
imposed within 30 days of the submis-10
sion of the report, the specific author-11
ity under which otherwise applicable 12
sanctions are being waived, have oth-13
erwise been determined not to apply, 14
or are not being imposed and a com-15
plete justification of the decision to 16
waive or otherwise not apply the sanc-17
tions authorized by such sanctions 18
programs and authorities. 19
(2) S
ANCTIONS LISTED.—The sanctions listed 20
in this paragraph are the following: 21
(A) Sanctions described in section 105(c) 22
of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Account-23
ability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 24
8514(c)). 25 8
•HR 589 EH
(B) Sanctions applicable with respect to a 1
person pursuant to Executive Order 13553 (50 2
U.S.C. 1701 note; relating to blocking property 3
of certain persons with respect to serious 4
human rights abuses by the Government of 5
Iran). 6
(C) Sanctions applicable with respect to a 7
person pursuant to Executive Order 13224 (50 8
U.S.C. 1701 note; relating to blocking property 9
and prohibiting transactions with persons who 10
commit, threaten to commit, or support ter-11
rorism). 12
(D) Sanctions applicable with respect to a 13
person pursuant to Executive Order 13818 (re-14
lating to blocking the property of persons in-15
volved in serious human rights abuse or corrup-16
tion). 17
(E) Sanctions applicable with respect to a 18
person pursuant to Executive Order 13876 (re-19
lating to imposing sanctions with respect to 20
Iran). 21
(F) Penalties and visa bans applicable with 22
respect to a person pursuant to section 7031(c) 23
of the Department of State, Foreign Oper-24 9
•HR 589 EH
ations, and Related Programs Appropriations 1
Act, 2021. 2
(3) F
ORM OF DETERMINATION .—The deter-3
mination required by paragraph (1) shall be pro-4
vided in an unclassified form but may contain a clas-5
sified annex provided separately containing addi-6
tional contextual information pertaining to justifica-7
tion for the issuance of any waiver issued, as de-8
scribed in paragraph (1)(C)(ii). The unclassified por-9
tion of such determination shall be made available 10
on a publicly available internet website of the Fed-11
eral Government. 12
(d) F
OREIGNPERSONSDESCRIBED.—The foreign 13
persons described in this subsection are the following: 14
(1) The Supreme Leader of Iran and any offi-15
cial in the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran. 16
(2) The President of Iran and any official in 17
the Office of the President of Iran or the President’s 18
cabinet, including cabinet ministers and executive 19
vice presidents. 20
(3) Any entity, including foundations and eco-21
nomic conglomerates, overseen by the Office of the 22
Supreme Leader of Iran which is complicit in financ-23
ing or resourcing of human rights abuses or support 24
for terrorism. 25 10
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(4) Any official of any entity owned or con-1
trolled by the Supreme Leader of Iran or the Office 2
of the Supreme Leader of Iran. 3
(5) Any person determined by the President— 4
(A) to be a person appointed by the Su-5
preme Leader of Iran, the Office of the Su-6
preme Leader of Iran, the President of Iran, or 7
the Office of the President of Iran to a position 8
as a state official of Iran, or as the head of any 9
entity located in Iran or any entity located out-10
side of Iran that is owned or controlled by one 11
or more entities in Iran; 12
(B) to have materially assisted, sponsored, 13
or provided financial, material, or technological 14
support for, or goods or services to or in sup-15
port of any person whose property and interests 16
in property are blocked pursuant to any sanc-17
tions program or authority listed in subsection 18
(c)(2); 19
(C) to be owned or controlled by, or to 20
have acted or purported to act for or on behalf 21
of, directly or indirectly any person whose prop-22
erty and interests in property are blocked pur-23
suant to any sanctions program or authority 24
listed in subsection (c)(2); or 25 11
•HR 589 EH
(D) to be a member of the board of direc-1
tors or a senior executive officer of any person 2
whose property and interests in property are 3
blocked pursuant to any sanctions program or 4
authority listed in subsection (c)(2). 5
(e) C
ONGRESSIONALOVERSIGHT.— 6
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 60 days after 7
receiving a request from the chairman and ranking 8
member of one of the appropriate congressional com-9
mittees with respect to whether a foreign person 10
meets the criteria of a person described in sub-11
section (d)(5), the President shall— 12
(A) determine if the person meets such cri-13
teria; and 14
(B) submit an unclassified report, with a 15
classified annex provided separately if needed, 16
to such chairman and ranking member with re-17
spect to such determination that includes a 18
statement of whether or not the President im-19
posed or intends to impose sanctions with re-20
spect to the person pursuant to any sanctions 21
program or authority listed in subsection (c)(2). 22
(2) A
PPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMIT -23
TEES DEFINED.—In this subsection, the term ‘‘ap-24
propriate congressional committees’’ means— 25 12
•HR 589 EH
(A) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of 1
the House of Representatives; and 2
(B) the Committee on Foreign Relations of 3
the Senate. 4
SEC. 3. SEVERABILITY. 5
If any provision of this Act, or the application of such 6
provision to any person or circumstance, is found to be 7
unconstitutional, the remainder of this Act, or the applica-8
tion of that provision to other persons or circumstances, 9
shall not be affected. 10
Passed the House of Representatives September 12,
2023.
Attest:
Clerk. 118
TH
CONGRESS
1
ST
S
ESSION
H. R. 589
AN ACT
To impose sanctions on the Supreme Leader of
Iran and the President of Iran and their respec-
tive offices for human rights abuses and support
for terrorism.