Impact on Social Movements
Because sanctions create social and financial insecurity, they culminate in heightened security measures and surveillance, violence, and poverty. The Iranian women’s rights activists, for example, have repeatedly expressed their opposition to U.S. sanctions and war, and to opportunistic appropriations of their struggles. They have rightly pointed out that sanctions give the state an excuse to suppress dissent in the name of national security. Furthermore, sanctions distract social movements by redirecting activists’ energies from making meaningful change from within to attending to economic crises or worrying about U.S. intervention and opportunistic appropriations of their cause.
