Fears Iranian Revolutionary Guards coming to Australia with Asian Cup team

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials or those with close ties to the fearsome entity – recently listed as a terror organisation in Australia – may have entered the country as part of a delegation travelling with the Iranian women’s football team, a powerful parliamentary committee has heard.

Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who spent 804 days in an Iranian prison after being falsely accused of being a spy, also called for security agencies to scrutinise whether close relatives of Iranian regime officials meet the character test required to live in Australia.

It was revealed earlier this month that Hanieh Safavi, the daughter of a sanctioned former senior IRGC figure, had been granted permanent residency in Australia after arriving as a student.

The Albanese government listed the IRGC as a terror group last November after domestic spy agency ASIO found it was responsible for directing attacks on a synagogue in Melbourne and a kosher deli in Sydney. This was the first time in Australian history that a state entity was officially named a terror group.

Iranian-Australian community leaders welcomed the listing but said it would be largely symbolic unless aggressively enforced.

“Their tentacles are everywhere,” Iranian-born Sydney councillor Tina Kordrostami said of the IRGC.

“We do see them engaged through media outlets, we do see them engaged within our cultural events even. And so there’s a lot of surveillance happening within the community.”

The arrival of the Iranian women’s football team in Australia for the Asian Cup this week highlighted the disturbing “grey area” in which the IRGC operates, she said.

“Many Australians welcome these athletes, and rightly so,” she said.

“Iranian women athletes themselves have shown extraordinary courage, but accompanying delegations include individuals widely understood within diaspora communities to be affiliated with, supportive of or aligned with IRGC structures, and these people have just landed in our country within the last few hours.

“This creates an impossible situation.”

Iran is scheduled to play the Australian Matildas in the Gold Coast next Thursday.

Kordrostami earlier said on social media that an active member of the IRGC was expected to arrive in Australia as part of the delegation. She told this masthead that the Department of Home Affairs may have blocked some members of the Iranian delegation from travelling to Australia after she provided information to the department.

The Iranian-born Ryde City councillor from northern Sydney said: “Australia has taken important steps in recognising the threat posed by the Iranian regime, but recognition alone is not enough.

“We must ensure our legal frameworks reflect the reality of how the IRGC operates today as a decentralised adaptive network that moves through business, media, culture and the diaspora space.”

She added: “We are not dealing with a conventional armed force. We are dealing with a hybrid entity: part military, part intelligence agency, part business network, part ideological machine, and this is where Australia faces a serious challenge.”

Kordrostami, whose family moved to Australia when she was 5, has spoken about her experience being harassed and followed by a heavily tattooed man who told her he knew where she lived. She believes he was an agent for the Iranian regime.

Moore-Gilbert said she was concerned the daughter of Iranian Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi had been granted permanent residency in Australia despite her father being sanctioned as a human rights abuser and previously serving as the chief commander of the IRGC.

The case “raises questions around the character test that’s applied to permanent residency”, she said, including whether Safavi provided funds to help his daughter live in Australia on a student visa.

“I’d note that she is not ... the only individual here in Australia who has close ties to the IRGC [and] whose visa status should be examined by security agencies in light of the recent prescription,” she said.

Moore-Gilbert said the fact that the Iranian-Australian community had taken it upon themselves to identify the children of senior regime figures living in Australia created “the widespread belief that security agencies have not been on top of this”.

She called for more funding for sanctions enforcement and Farsi language expertise at ASIO.

Senior Department of Home Affairs official Ciara Spencer said all visa applicants to Australia needed to pass a security and character test, including vetting by agencies such as ASIO if appropriate.

Asked whether this would include family connections to IRGC officials, she said: “I won’t comment on personal matters, but yes, it would include anyone with links to the organisation ... There’s grants for cancellation on character grounds, and that doesn’t go to family relationships, that goes to any links that raise concerns and that would be investigated.”

These requirements would apply to any players or officials travelling to Australia as part of the women’s Asian Cup delegation, she said.

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