Sanctions urged for 'child-killer regime'

By attempting to negotiate with Iran, the Australian government is supporting a "child-killing regime", a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Hundreds of Iranians have been killed, including 40 children, in protests after a young woman died in police custody in September for not wearing a headscarf. 

"The Iranian regime is a fundamentally totalitarian dictatorship that is not reformable and not negotiable," Iranian-Australian scholar and journalist Dr Saba Vasefi told a Senate inquiry on Monday.

In an emotional submission, Dr Vasefi recounted the arrest and alleged lashing of her brother in police custody.

"I can't forget everything, I can't forget the bruises not only of my brother but of all of the people (in Iran)," she said.

"They are killing people, it's about flesh and blood...don't allow that to happen."

Dr Vasefi asked the one-day Senate inquiry, chaired by Liberal senator Claire Chandler, why Australia was "looking for a relationship with a raping, child-killing regime".

"If one of those dead children was a white child, how would Australia respond," she said.

Former Iranian prisoner Kylie Moore-Gilbert also gave evidence to the inquiry, pleading for the federal government to sanction Iran, describing the use of current Magnitsky sanctions as "woeful".

"We've sanctioned Russia over its human rights and warmongering behaviour, why shouldn't we sanction Iran," Ms Moore-Gilbert told the inquiry.

Ms Moore-Gilbert was detained by the regime from 2018 to 2020, and says compared with other more robust sanction measures from Canada and Germany, the Australian government's response has been lacklustre.

"Cabinet ministers, MPs and government officials have tweeted statements expressing Australia's dismay ... while these steps are welcome, they are inadequate and they don't constitute meaningful action at all," she said.

Ms Moore-Gilbert said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is opposed to sanctions because it holds concerns for an Iranian-Australian dual national believed to be detained in Iran.

"We simply cannot allow the consular cases of a handful of wrongfully detained Australians to dictate Australia's response to Iran's violations of human rights on a mass scale," she wrote in her submission.

The inquiry also heard from Kurdish nationals, as well as Amnesty Australia and UN Human Rights watch - who all called for some form of sanctions on Iran.

The committee's report is due in February.