Zhang Hongbo (Zhang) has been the director of the Tibetan Public Security Bureau (TPSB) since 2018 through at least November 2022. Zhang has worked to advance the PRC’s goals and policies in the TAR as “Tibet’s police chief.” During Zhang’s tenure, the TPSB engaged in serious human rights abuse, including at TPSB-run detention centers that were involved in the torture, physical abuse, and killings of prisoners, which included those arrested on religious and political grounds. Additional abuses perpetrated by security forces in Tibet include arbitrary arrests, persecution of religious and political freedoms, and mass detentions in the TAR.
Zhang is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being a foreign person who is or has been a leader or official of the TPSB, an entity that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, serious human rights abuse relating to his tenure.
The designation of Zhang is complemented by the U.S. Department of State’s announcement of his designation, with associated visa restrictions, under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for his involvement in a gross violation of human rights. Pursuant to Section 7031(c), Zhang and his immediate family members are ineligible for entry into the United States.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
