Angus Taylor’s claim that Iran is a ‘bad country’ erases the courage of those who resist the regime at all costs

Angus Taylor’s remarks obscure ‘the reality that many Iranians are actively fighting for freedoms that underpin democratic societies such as Australia’, Nos Hosseini writes. Photograph: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Recent remarks by the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, including comments describing Iran as a “bad country” and suggesting migrants from such nations may hold “subversive intent”, reveal a failure to differentiate between authoritarian regimes and the people forced to live under them.

This framing blurs the critical distinction between oppressor and oppressed while “othering” entire communities and obscuring the reality that many Iranians are actively fighting for freedoms that underpin democratic societies such as Australia; freedom of expression and belief, access to justice, bodily autonomy, and the right to live without fear of arbitrary detention or state violence.