d. 5, Nezhiloe Pomeshchenie, Ul. Zavodskaya, Svetlogorsk, 247439, Belarus
Reg. ID
400031289, Tax ID No.
Official reason
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action today against the 15 Khordad Foundation, an Iran-based foundation that has issued a multi-million-dollar bounty for the killing of prominent Indian-born, British-American author Salman Rushdie. Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s order pronouncing a death sentence on Rushdie in February 1989, 15 Khordad Foundation has committed millions of dollars to anyone willing to carry out this heinous act. Since putting its bounty on Rushdie, the 15 Khordad Foundation, which is affiliated with the Supreme Leader, has raised the reward for targeting the author. OFAC is designating 15 Khordad Foundation pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, an act of terrorism. The 15 Khordad Foundation is a so-called charitable foundation subordinate to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Since 1989, the 15 Khordad Foundation, inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini’s order calling for Rushdie’s execution, has proudly placed a bounty on the author’s life.
The call for Rushdie’s assassination, issued by Ayatollah Khomeini and financially backed by the 15 Khordad Foundation and other Iranian entities, has led to the death and injury of several people associated with Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, including other writers, translators, and publishers. In 1991, the translator of The Satanic Verses into Japanese was assassinated in his office. Even people with no connection to the novel have been maimed or killed. In 1993, at least 37 people were killed when a mob burned down a hotel in Turkey that was hosting a writer who had translated Rushdie’s work.
The 15 Khordad Foundation maintains a multi-million-dollar bounty on Rushdie. As recently as 2012, the 15 Khordad Foundation increased its bounty on the author, bringing the total sum from $2.7 million to $3.3 million. The 15 Khordad Foundation’s leadership has publicly advertised their offer, claiming the entire sum would be given immediately to anyone who assassinated Rushdie.
E.O. 14038. On August 9, 2021, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), issued E.O. 14038. In E.O. 14038, the President expanded the scope of the national emergency declared in E.O. 13405, finding that the Belarusian regime's harmful activities and long-standing abuses aimed at suppressing democracy and the exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Belarus including illicit and oppressive activities stemming from the August 9, 2020, fraudulent Belarusian presidential election and its aftermath, such as the elimination of political opposition and civil society organizations and the regime's disruption and endangering of international civil air travel—constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.
