Muslims for Just Futures’ Statement on Designations and its Implication on Movement Infrastructure
We condemn in the strongest terms the U.S. government’s expansion of sanctions against Palestinian human rights organizations. These politically motivated designations are a direct attack on movement infrastructure and the vital work of organizations committed to justice and human rights. By cutting off access to the global financial system, these sanctions choke nonprofits’ ability to operate, dragging countless groups into a punitive dragnet and threatening the survival of Palestinian-led organizing.
On September 4, 2025, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added three Palestinian human rights groups to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, citing Executive Order 14203. This executive order creates a new mechanism for placing groups on the SDN list by imposing sanctions on the ICC as a whole, including anyone who worked with ICC, assisted in any ICC investigation, or the immediate family members of those who have worked with or assisted the ICC. This new sanctions mechanism carries the same devastating consequences as other sanctions regimes. Being placed on the SDN list means frozen bank accounts, denial of access to the U.S. financial system, and effective exclusion from the international banking system just for calling for accountability for genocide against Palestinians. In practice, this starves organizations of the funding and resources they need to survive.
As noted by the Charity & Security Network (C&SN), this designation is not happening under the SDGT framework or through the traditional terrorism designation regime, but rather under Executive Order 14203. OFAC authorized a 30-day wind down period for transactions with the three targeted groups, “provided that any payments to a blocked person is made into a blocked interest-bearing account located in the United States.” This shift is deeply chilling and sets a dangerous precedent. By cutting off access to banking and preventing organizations from receiving critical funds, the U.S. government is not only targeting these groups directly, but also harming the communities that rely on them for survival. These sanctions create a significant chokepoint, deliberately strangling the ability of civil society organizations to function. Access to capital and the global financial system, including basic banking services, is essential for groups to carry out their work. To weaponize financial systems in this way is to criminalize solidarity and starve movements of the resources they need in a moment of dire crisis.
This escalation mirrors other troubling expansions of sanctions authority. The targeting of Palestinian human rights organizations under EO 14203 serves as a test case for how sanctions can be weaponized against civil society and human rights defenders to cut off critical financial access for groups. At a time when Gaza is in the midst of a catastrophic banking and liquidity crisis—where most of the banks aren’t operational and the financial infrastructure of Gaza has been decimated—this represents a profound humanitarian emergency. Cutting off funding streams to Palestinian human rights organizations under these conditions is a deliberate choice to deepen suffering, block aid, and sever the lifelines of communities already under siege.
We join the international outcry in demanding an end to these sanctions regimes. We call for an immediate end to the genocide of Palestinians and an end to the use of financial repression as a weapon against movements.
