Iran Marks Anti-Coercion Day with Fierce Rebuke of US Sanctions

By Staff, Agencies

Iran has strongly condemned US-imposed unilateral sanctions on the occasion of the newly established International Day against Unilateral Coercive Measures, describing them as “illegal, inhuman, and tantamount to crimes against humanity.”

In a statement posted on X on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei highlighted the significance of December 4, which the United Nations General Assembly designated earlier this year as the International Day against Unilateral Coercive Measures through resolution 79/293.

“The date coincides with the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development on 4 December 1986 [UNGA resolution 41/128],” Baghaei noted.

He stated unilateral coercive measures – primarily economic, financial, and banking sanctions imposed without UN Security Council approval – are systematically violating core human rights, including the rights to life, health, education, and development.

By deliberately targeting the lives and well-being of entire populations, these measures constitute crimes against humanity, the spokesman declared, adding that “the United States must be held accountable for committing such crimes through its illegal and inhuman sanctions against the peoples of developing countries, including Iran.”

The US has long imposed illegal sanctions on Iran over unfounded nuclear concerns, intensifying them after Trump quit the fully-complied-with 2015 deal; by choking financial channels for essential medicines and equipment, these sanctions—despite claimed humanitarian exemptions—have left tens of thousands of Iranian patients dead or critically ill due to unavailable vital drugs.

Iranian officials have consistently argued that these measures collectively punish ordinary citizens and impede the country’s socioeconomic development.

The UN General Assembly’s creation of the new international day in June 2025, amid rising calls from the Non-Aligned Movement and developing nations over the humanitarian harm of unilateral sanctions, led Iran to reiterate that such measures violate international law and the UN Charter and to urge stronger global efforts to end them.

In July 2024, the Tehran Legal Court of International Relations ordered the US government and its officials to pay $6.785 billion in material, moral, and punitive damages to plaintiffs representing Iran’s EB patients, after 295 patients and family members sued over US sanctions that had blocked the import of essential pharmaceuticals and wound dressings for the rare skin disease.