I was stalked and harassed by Iranian agents on Australian soil: This is my message to Anthony Albanese

An Aussie councillor who was stalked, followed and threatened by suspected agents of Iran has claimed Anthony Albanese’s belated decision to sever diplomatic ties with the Islamic regime has cost lives. 

Tina Kordrostami has been the victim of multiple instances of stalking, intimidation and threats in Sydney and online by individuals suspected of working for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) over the past few years. 

The Iranian-Australian, who fled the Islamic regime with her family when she was five years old, has long called for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

So it was with a mixture of relief and frustration that Ms Kordrostami greeted the news on Tuesday that Anthony Albanese had listed the IRGC as a terror group in response to revelations it orchestrated attacks on Australian soil.

‘Iran has sought to disguise its involvement, but ASIO assesses it was behind the attacks on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 20 last year, and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6 last year,’ the Prime Minister said.

‘ASIO assesses it’s likely Iran directed further attacks as well. These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil.’

Albanese revealed that Iran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, had also been expelled – the first time a foreign official has been booted out the country since World War Two.

But Ms Kordrostami and others have also been calling for Sadeghi’s expulsion for months due to his praise for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his description of Israel as a ‘Zionist plague’ – and yet Albanese failed to act until now.

And the 30-year-old architect said she was completely unsurprised by the revelation that authorities suspect Melbourne tobacco kingpin Kazem ‘Kaz’ Hamad was behind the firebombing of the Addass synagogue.    

‘For decades we’ve been saying that members of the IRGC, supporters of it at least, are positioned within all these different Australian gangs,’ Ms Kordrostami told the Daily Mail. 

‘And we weren’t taken seriously because when a community speaks up about a regime they’re either exaggerating to get their point across or they’re acting from a place of trauma. But it’s now all coming to light.

‘It’s just that it’s very late. We have lost people to all of this harassment and abuse. People have taken their lives, people have been assassinated so it is too late for those people and their families.’

Ms Kordrostami, an independent Ryde City councillor, said that although she welcomed Albanese’s action, it felt like all her campaigning about the harms the regime was doing to the Iranian community in Australia had fallen on deaf ears.

 ‘If you look at the (Iranian) regime… They chant “death to Israel, death to America, death to the West” on a daily basis,’ Ms Kordrostami.

‘They have made their intentions, , globally very clear, which is , they’re not too focused on Iran itself. It’s more so gaining power within the region.

‘They in no way have shown any positive step towards promoting human rights within the country, they are globally ranked third in execution rates so when we look at all of this you realise there is absolutely no logical reason as to why the Australian government has to have a relationship with Iran.’

The Opposition had also been calling for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation for several years. 

‘Why didn’t you act sooner when the warnings were so clear and the risks so grave?’ Liberal leader Sussan Ley asked the PM in parliament on Wednesday.

Albanese said he deferred to ASIO’s assessment, with spy boss Mike Burgess not recommending listing the IRGC until now when they had incontrovertible evidence that the regime was behind anti-Semitic attacks on Australian soil.

Yet, for Ms Kordrostimai, it has been a time of soul-searching for the Iranian community in Australia. 

‘The disappointing part of all this is that the decision wasn’t even made because of the Iranian community and all the time and effort we put into communicating  to the government about the regime, it was made because of another community,’ she added.

She said she wished the government had made more of an acknowledgment of the harms suffered by the Australian-Iranian community during Tuesday’s announcement.

‘But, again, it’s a win for us and we hope that Iranian embassy remains closed and the IRGC can stay on that terrorist list,’ Ms Kordrostami added.

‘I hope that it instigates a new investigation into all of the business and trade deals the Australian government currently has with the Iranian regime because there are many.’

She said she wanted to see a greater spotlight shone on the information some of Australia’s top universities allegedly share with Iran. 

‘At the moment  we are just excited to finally see this step towards the removal of the regime. But when it settles, questions will start to be asked like, what happens with my citizenship process? What is going to happen with my family stuck over there?

‘What about the Australian prisoners that are still in Iran? What about all deals some of out supermarkets have with the regime?’

 Ms Kordrostami, who is an advocate for the plight of Palestinians, recently quit the Greens over some of its members’ failure to condemn the Iranian regime or terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.  

‘I was dealing with a lot of hate from the Greens and their supporters up until now. And now with this news coming out, it’s gotten even worse because for people who aren’t informed about the Middle East and the complexities of that geopolitical situation, they see things in a very binary way,’ she said.

‘You’re either a Zionist or you are against the genocide. There there’s just, there is no spectrum.’

Ms Kordrostami said that a lot of wide-eyed left-wing activists failed to see that terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah were proxies for Iran, which is committed to wiping Israel off the map.

 Her friend, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was detained in Iran for over 800 days on false charges of espionage, also slammed the government for taking so long to act. 

‘For years now, the Iranian-Australian community and other victims of the IRGC, including myself, have been literally screaming at rallies, to our local MPs, in parliamentary consultations, and in reports to the national security hotline that Iranian agents are operating brazenly and with few consequences here on Australian soil,’ Dr Moore-Gilbert said on Tuesday.

 ‘Overseas, we have seen numerous incidents of Iran contracting organised crime to conduct attacks on journalists, dissidents, and targets within the Jewish community. 

‘Many of us have long been saying that an Iranian hand lies behind some of the antisemitic attacks which have proliferated here in Australia since October 7.’

Dr Moore-Gilbert pointed to a Senate inquiry held in February 2023, which recommended the IRGC be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

She also said she had been calling for the expulsion of Ambassador Sadeghi due to his ‘repeated anti-Semitic remarks on social media, and due to his embassy’s sinister role in sponsoring the surveillance of dissidents here in Australia’. 

‘I personally have petitioned two foreign ministers to sanction IRGC officials directly complicit in the wrongful detention and effective hostage-taking of myself and at least four other Australian citizens, with no response,’ Dr Moore-Gilbert added.

She said she was glad Albanese had acted, but added: ‘It’s such a shame that it’s taken them so long’.