(Newser)
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If you use technology to help a repressive regime commit human rights abuses, you'll find yourself slapped with US sanctions. That's the message from President Obama, who this morning announced a new executive order specifically targeting those backing Iran and Syria via technology, though it could be expanded to other regimes, reports the Washington Post. The new sanctions will include a US visa ban and financial restrictions on a number of Syrian and Iranian businesses and government agencies, along with a lone Syrian individual.
Obama announced the sanctions in a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the AP reports. "National sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your own people," he said, drawing a parallel between the Holocaust and modern day atrocities. He also called for the first-ever National Intelligence Estimate of the potential for mass-killings around the world. "We must tell our children about a crime unique in human history: the one and only Holocaust," he said. But "remembrance without action changes nothing."
