The passage of a new law in the Australian Parliament that allows the federal government to blacklist foreign state institutions as “supporters or perpetrators of terrorism” is a historic milestone. This decision matters not only for Australia’s national security but carries deep symbolic meaning for the Kurdish liberation movement and all peoples who have been victims of the Islamic Republic’s organized terror.

With this law, Australia has effectively put the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — the military and security arm of the Iranian regime — on a trajectory toward being listed among state terrorist organizations worldwide.

This decision echoes justice for decades of bloodshed and suffering endured by peoples targeted by Tehran’s machinery of terror — above all the Kurdish people.

The IRGC is not only the instrument of domestic repression for the Velayat-e Faqih regime; it is also one of the largest state terrorist organizations in the world. For the Kurdish nation, this is not an abstract statement — it is a bitter, bloody experience that has continued from the 1980s to the present day.

On 13 July 1989, IRGC forces and the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic shot Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou — the Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan — in a diplomatic apartment in Vienna, Austria, during peace negotiations.

Three years later, in September 1992, in the heart of Berlin, Dr. Saeed Sharafkandi, Ghassemlou’s deputy, was assassinated along with two companions — Fattah Abdoli and Homayoun Ardalan — at the “Mykonos” restaurant. A German court later explicitly stated that the order for that assassination came directly from the highest levels of the Iranian system.

Since then, the IRGC and its affiliated intelligence units have assassinated dozens of Kurdish activists, artists, and journalists on Iraqi, Turkish, and even European soil.

In southern Kurdistan (the Kurdistan Region of Iraq), the IRGC has repeatedly bombarded Kurdish party headquarters with drones, artillery, and missiles — including repeated attacks on Koyê, Kûsrit, Zargouz, and others — causing the deaths of dozens of refugee women and children.

There are numerous documents and testimonies that IRGC forces have even used poisons and chemical agents to contaminate food supplies in the camps of Kurdish parties.

Australia and the End of Impunity for State Terror
Now, as Australia passes its new law, it effectively tells the international community: the time has come to hold terrorist states to account just like non-state terrorist groups.

Australia’s official intelligence report (ASIO) notes that the IRGC was behind two arson attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. These attacks, motivated by anti-Semitic and anti-democratic impulses, are a clear sign of the expansion of the Islamic Republic’s terrorist activities into the Oceania region.

The passage of the “States Supporting Terrorism” law gives the Australian government the power to list any foreign official institution — including the IRGC — as a terrorist organization; freeze their assets and financial transactions; and criminalize cooperation with them.

For the Kurdish people, this is a moral and historic victory: the world has finally accepted in legal language what has occurred in the mountains of Kurdistan, in refugee camps, and on the streets of Europe — that these were acts of “state terrorism” — not an internal struggle, not a political disagreement.

From the earliest days after the 1979 Revolution, following Khomeini’s decree to wage jihad against the people of Kurdistan, the IRGC was tasked to, at the instruction of Ruhollah Khomeini, “suppress the Kurdistan uprising.” That mission has continued to this day, in newer forms and with more sophisticated instruments.

• In the 1980s, the IRGC destroyed dozens of villages in eastern Kurdistan and executed thousands of civilians in field executions.
• In later decades, this policy extended beyond Iran’s borders — from assassinations of Kurdish leaders in Europe to repeated bombings of the Kurdistan Region.
• In recent years the IRGC has used ballistic missiles and suicide drones to target the headquarters of Kurdish parties, while the Kurdistan Regional Government has remained silent for political reasons.

All of these are examples of a single doctrine: the continuous demonization of the Kurdish people and an effort to politically and physically destroy the liberation movement.

What happened in Australia is not merely a law; it is the formal admission by a democratic country of a reality Kurdish people have been shouting about for years: the Islamic Republic uses terror as both foreign and domestic policy.

When Australia says “the IRGC is an agent or supporter of terrorism,” that phrase has a historical resonance for the Kurdish nation — it resonates with the blood of Ghassemlou, Sharafkandi, and the hundreds of unnamed martyrs in the mountains and camps of southern Kurdistan.

Therefore, the Kurdish national movement should regard this moment as historic opportunity:
• First, as a legal basis for pursuing international accountability for the crimes of the Iranian regime in global courts;
• Second, to build political unity among Kurdish forces against state terrorism;
• And third, to marshal international support against continued IRGC drone, missile, and terrorist attacks on Iraqi and Syrian territory.

Australia’s action will begin a chain of new developments.

In Canada, the IRGC has been on the terrorist list since 2024. The United States made the same designation in 2019. Now, with Australia joining, a new bloc of democratic countries has formed that can, through security and intelligence cooperation, curb IRGC activities outside Iran.

In Europe, too, this action could break a significant legal barrier. The European Parliament has repeatedly urged the Union to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization, but the EU institutions have cited a lack of “judicial basis.” Australia’s decision and the official ASIO report now provide such a basis.

For this reason, civil movements and Kurdish parties must highlight this decision in their international campaigns — particularly in talks with European parliaments and human-rights bodies.

The Failure of the Denial Policy
The Iranian regime has always sought to portray its foreign assassinations as “opposition lies” or “internal disputes.” But now, a country with democratic credibility and significant geographic distance has documented that a military institution of the regime was involved in terrorist operations.

This marks the end of the era of denial. Just as the Mykonos trial was a turning point in exposing the Islamic Republic’s state terror in the 1990s, Australia’s action can be the Mykonos of the twenty-first century — a point beyond which the world can no longer close its eyes to the IRGC’s crimes.

For the Kurdish people and their political forces, Australia’s decision above all confirms the correctness of the path of resistance and steadfastness.

The free world, after decades of silence, now hears the voices of the victims. We are neither enemies of peace nor enemies of Iran; we demand freedom and justice for our people.

By assassinating peaceful and freedom-seeking Kurdish leaders, the IRGC has shown that its primary enemy is not war but reconciliation and liberty.

Today Australia said what Kurds have been shouting for decades:

The Islamic Republic itself is a terrorist regime.

Australia’s international action is a major step toward legitimizing the demands of peoples who for years have been victims of state terror.

Now it is the duty of the Kurdish national movement to use this opportunity to assemble an “international IRGC dossier” — a file that includes all crimes against Kurds: from village bombings and assassinations of leaders to the poisoning of political refugees in southern Kurdistan.

Any global legal decision gains meaning when the victimized peoples transform it into a tool for justice and redress.

Australia has opened the gate — now it is our turn to walk through it and bring state terror to the dock of history.