Sydney —
Australia is marking the second anniversary of Mahsa Zina Amini’s imprisonment and dying by imposing additional sanctions on Iranian officers.
A 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian girl was arrested in September 2022 for “improperly” sporting a hijab.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong mentioned on Monday that Australia stands in solidarity with “the ladies and ladies of Iran of their struggle for equality and empowerment.”
Mr Wong introduced monetary sanctions and journey bans towards senior safety and regulation enforcement officers believed to have been concerned within the “violent repression” of protests in Iran.
He mentioned the human rights scenario in Iran was “dire” as girls activists continued to be detained and sentenced to dying.
“We have sanctioned 5 Iranian safety officers and regulation enforcement officers who had been concerned in so-called regulation enforcement actions that in the end amounted to repression, violent repression, towards the Iranian individuals,” Wong mentioned.
Nikita White, an activist with human rights group Amnesty International Australia, advised native media on Monday that human rights had been quickly deteriorating in Iran.
“Those who’re being executed are being executed after horribly unfair trials,” White mentioned, including that there have been additionally experiences of torture and ill-treatment.
Australia at present has sanctions on round 200 people and organizations with hyperlinks to Iran, together with members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. It was listed as a terrorist group by Canada earlier this 12 months, following the same transfer by the United States in 2019.
In Canberra on Monday, opposition lawmaker and shadow international affairs spokesperson Simon Birmingham referred to as on the Australian authorities to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist group.
Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described sanctions introduced by Britain, France and Germany as “financial terrorism”.
Araghchi denied US claims that Iran despatched ballistic missiles to Russia in help of its conflict with Ukraine.