US President Barack Obama has signed an executive order for sanctions against regimes that use technology to perpetrate human rights abuses.
In a speech at the US Holocaust Museum, Mr Obama said,
"National sovereignty is never a licence to slaughter your people."
The executive order creates sanctions against the government of Syria and Iran "and those who abet them, for using technologies to monitor, target and track its citizens for violence".
"These technologies should be in place to empower citizens, not to repress them,"
The US treasury announced the targets of the sanctions, including Syria’s state-controlled mobile phone company Syriatel, Iranian internet provider Datak Telecom and Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps.