(23 June 2011 – Australia) The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is taking a stand on human rights abuses at the direction of the Australian Government.Under the Banking (Foreign Exchange) Regulations 1959 the bank is implementing new autonomous targeted financial sanctions against Syria and further autonomous targeted financial sanctions against Libya.
The new sanctions against Syria are against certain key persons and entities responsible for, or involved in human rights abuses. In a release this week, the details of those sanctioned were attached.
The RBA already has existing sanctions against Libya and have expanded those to cover additional key persons and entities associated with the Gaddafi regime.
They were also listed on the release, to now contain a total of 34 persons and 20 entities.