European Union lists Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group

The European Union will list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, officials announced Thursday afternoon, Jan. 29, 2026, saying the move follows a brutal and bloody crackdown against protesters in recent weeks. The decision brings the European Union in line with the United States and Canada, which have already designated the organization as a terrorist group.

The Times reported that France, Italy and Spain had previously worried that blacklisting the corps could close off diplomatic channels to Tehran, but that calculus shifted after the recent violence. While it is not clear how many people have been killed in Iran’s crackdown on the protests, the report says most independent monitoring groups agree that the number of deaths is in the thousands.

The European Union will also hit 21 Iranian individuals and entities with sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, a measure described as meant to signal the bloc’s opposition to what is happening in the country. Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, said on the sidelines of a meeting of ministers in Brussels, "This decision is also a call — a call to the Iranian authorities to liberate the prisoners who, by tens of thousands, have been thrown in the regime's prisons." He added that it was also a call to end executions and to allow the Iranian people to decide their futures for themselves.

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