Australia imposed new sanctions on 20 individuals and three entities linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accusing them of involvement in a violent crackdown on protests.
“The Australian Government is today imposing further targeted financial sanctions on Iran in response to the regime’s horrific use of violence against its own people,” read a government media release on Tuesday.
The Australian government said those sanctioned include senior IRGC officials and entities that violently suppress domestic protests and threaten lives inside and outside Iran.
Among those named are Iran’s national police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan, who has been a central figure in directing street-level repression, mass arrests and the use of force against protesters.
Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib was also on the list. He oversees the security and intelligence apparatus responsible for surveillance, detentions and interrogations of activists and dissidents.
Ali Fazli, a senior IRGC commander and former Basij chief, who has long been associated with suppressing protests and coordinating paramilitary forces against demonstrators, was also sanctioned by Canberra.
Other notable names on the list included Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh, a senior commander in the IRGC’s Quds Force, Mohammad Saleh Jokar, a former commander of student Basij forces, and Yahya Hosseini Panjaki, the intelligence ministry’s deputy for domestic security.
Canberra’s sanctions also targeted the IRGC Cyber Defense Command, involved in online surveillance and information control; IRGC Quds Force Unit 840, a covert unit accused of planning operations against dissidents and foreign targets; and the IRGC Intelligence Organization, which oversees domestic intelligence, arrests and interrogations and plays a central role in suppressing protests inside Iran.
The Australian government said the new measures build on earlier step of listing the IRGC as a state sponsor of terrorism and its existing sanctions framework on Iran.
Australia officially designated IRGC as a state sponsor of terrorism in November after intelligence linked the group to attacks on Jewish centers in Sydney and Melbourne.
The Guards, who have been designated a terrorist organization by the United States since 2019, were also put on the EU’s terrorist list in late January.
The Albanese government has so far sanctioned more than 200 Iranian individuals and entities, including more than 100 linked to the IRGC.