‘We Fear For Our Lives’: Foreign spies threaten Australia’s multicultural communities

The federal government has set up a counter-foreign interference taskforce, which together with ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, aims to disrupt any suspicious activity — but also inform the community about how to report it.

In his annual threat assessment, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said more Australians are being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than ever before, revealing details of a foreign interference operation which involved a former politician.

“We have a responsibility to call it out. Australians need to know that the threat is real. The threat is now. And the threat is deeper and broader than you might think.”

In a statement to SBS, a spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said: “culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities face unique threats and issues arising from foreign interference”, with “some foreign powers or their proxies seeking to silence, intimidate, monitor or harass members of CALD communities that they see as dissidents”.

In February 2023, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil singled out Iran as an offending government when it came to foreign interference, revealing ASIO had disrupted an operation on Australian soil targeting an Australian-Iranian critic of the regime.

No, foreign interference from Iran here is not relevant. By no means, under no circumstances.

Ahmad Sadeghi, Iran’s ambassador to Australia

In an exclusive interview with SBS Persian, the Iranian ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, denied foreign interference is being carried out in Australia from the Iranian government.

“No, foreign interference from Iran here is not relevant. By no means, under no circumstances,” he said.

Opposition assistant foreign affairs spokesperson Claire Chandler urged the Iranian ambassador to read the results of the Senate inquiry into human rights implications of recent violence in Iran.

“I would urge them to read the submissions from the Iranian diaspora that were provided to that committee,” Chandler said.

“All I’m hearing … is that Iranians within Australia are very concerned about the monitoring, the surveillance, the harassment, and the intimidation that they are having to deal with at the hands of this regime.

“The [Australian] government needs to be clear-eyed and transparent about its interactions with embassy officials here in Australia, the government needs to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, we also believe the government should be utilising the full suite of sanctions it has available to it.”

In response to a question from SBS about the government’s reluctance to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “We have vigilant processes, through the listing of organisations. We go through those processes appropriately, including through the national security, based upon advice.”

Threats of kidnapping: operatives targeting Iranian-Australians

Sydney-based activist Mohammad Hashemi’s cousin Majid Kazemi was executed in Iran last year, after being arrested during a Woman, Life, Freedom protest.

Before he was killed, Kazemi’s family says Iranian authorities interrogated Kazemi about his relatives’ activities in Australia.

“We know they have their spies here and we know they are watching us and monitoring us,” Hashemi told SBS News.

“They have people in many countries, they are trying to control our people, scare people … they don’t have any border for that, they will do anything.”

Mohammad Hashemi started a campaign to save his cousin, Majid Kazemi, from execution in Iran last year. Source: SBS News / /

On 29 January, The United States and the United Kingdom slapped sanctions on a network that targeted Iranian opposition activists. The US Treasury said this network was related to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

Hashemi’s campaign in Australia, an attempt to save his cousin, has instead landed him and his family, who are in Iran, a separate sentence of surveillance.

“They told my father, ‘We know everything about Mohammad, what he is doing in Australia, where he lives, what his job is,'” he said.

“[They said] ‘If he won’t stop, [we] have a mission to go to Australia and kidnap him and take him back to Iran.'”

Source: ‘We Fear For Our Lives’: Foreign spies threaten Australia’s multicultural communities