Immediately lift the embargo on Iran
Immediately lift the embargo on Iran
Un Ponte Per calls on the European Union and the Italian government to take the necessary measures and initiatives to urgently suspend the embargo on Iran. The sanctions affect millions of people, fostering poverty and largely limiting the trade of medicines and medical equipment in this critical moment of emergency.
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The embargo on Iran is a death sentence: it must be lifted immediately
The Covid-19 pandemic is spreading widely and quickly throughout the Republic of Iran, where (as of 3.04.2020) the registered cases of contagion were 50.468 with 3.160 deaths, with a substantial likelihood of much higher numbers and a dramatic progression of contagion.
The measures to contrast and contain the diffusion of the pandemic and to care for the sick are severely limited by financial and commercial constraints imposed on the Country by economic sanctions.
Consequently, the death toll will likely surge far above the already dramatic estimates. Nonetheless, the sanctions have been further tightened after the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Iranian population has been hit for a long time with unilateral economic sanctions – which severely mine its chances for social and economic development. The sanctions affect millions of people whose only fault is to be born in that country, and they contribute to poverty, thus limiting the rise of a democratic political dialectic.
These sanctions, imposed after the signing of the Nuclear Deal and the Resolution 2231 of the Security Council in 2015, are devoid of legal basis, and have been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice.
Since the sanctions impede financial transactions and International Carriage, trade in health and sanitary equipment is largely restricted. Already in 2019, a report by Human Rights Watch documented that the sanctions had “drastically limited the capacity of Iran to finance imports for humanitarian aid, including medicines”.
As a result of the sanctions, several companies which provide necessary medical equipment to contrast and combat the coronavirus have encountered difficulties in shipping to Iran, because their banks refuse to handle these transactions for fear of retaliation.
The request submitted by the Republic of Iran to the International Monetary Fund to access a 5 billion dollars emergency credit to buy goods and assets essentials in the fight against the pandemic risks being rejected due to the sanctions.
Maintaining the sanctions in this crucially dramatic moment for Iran corresponds to a death sentence for thousands of people.
No country should be hit with economic sanctions which generate humanitarian emergencies and limit its economic and social development, regardless of the pro-tempore government in place and of the opinion of it held by other governments.
Even more so, no one should be limited in their chances to avoid contagion or even death by Covid-19, for being born in Iran or in other countries subjected to embargos.
For these reasons we endorse the call made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the suspension of all economic sanctions; we call on the European Union and the Italian government to take the necessary measures and initiatives to urgently lift, or at the very least suspend until the end of the pandemic and subsequent economic recovery, the unilateral economic sanctions against the Republic of Iran and any other country.