The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs requests the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization and the imposition of sanctions on the persons responsible. He calls for this after the security forces intervened in the recent protests in Iran.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Monday called on the European Union to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization after security forces cracked down on mass protests in Iran. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
In short:
- The Italian minister calls on the EU to label the Iranian guards as terrorists
- It also proposes individual sanctions for those responsible for violence
- The protests in Iran started because of economic problems and inflation
- According to official data, more than 3,000 people died during the protests
Tajani said he would present the proposal in “collaboration with other partners” at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday. In addition, it also calls for the imposition of individual sanctions on persons responsible for interventions against protesters.
Mass protests in Iran
“The losses suffered by the civilian population during the protests require a clear response,” the head of Italian diplomacy wrote on the X network.
Members of the European Parliament also called on the Council of the EU to take such a step on Thursday. They also expressed outrage at the repression and mass violence perpetrated by the Iranian regime against protesters.
The protests in Iran began on December 28, 2025 and were sparked by economic problems caused by a sharp drop in the Iranian rial currency and a rise in inflation. From Tehran, they gradually spread throughout the country. In several places, the authorities restricted access to the Internet and mobile networks, thereby trying to limit the coordination of the protests and the availability of information about them to the outside world.
Victims and new sanctions
These protests were accompanied by violence by the security forces against the protesters. Several countries and EU representatives condemned the interventions. In January, the head of EU diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, submitted to the member states a proposal for new sanctions against Iran, the aim of which is to punish it for violent interventions against demonstrators. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week announced a plan to ban further exports of critical drone and missile technology to Iran.
Last week on Wednesday, Iranian authorities published the first official death toll of the protests, according to which 3,117 people were killed, including 2,427 civilians and members of the security forces, the rest were “terrorists”. But the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) announced on Monday that the number of confirmed victims had exceeded 6,000 and was investigating another 17,000 possible deaths.
