Australia should designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organisation and be prepared to expel diplomats from the country, according to a new Senate inquiry report.
The report, published on Wednesday, urged the government to expel “any Iranian officials in Australia considered to be involved in intimidation, threats, or monitoring of Australians”.
The inquiry’s findings will increase pressure on the Australian government to expand its response to the violence in Iran, even after it imposed further sanctions on military and security officials for suppressing protests and supplying drones for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The Senate inquiry into the human rights implications of violence in Iran was launched in October amid a crackdown on protests triggered by the death in custody of Jina “Mahsa” Amini, 22, in September. She had been arrested by Iran’s “morality police”.
The Senate’s foreign affairs, defence and trade references committee received nearly 500 submissions, dozens of which have remained confidential to protect the safety of individuals.
The chair of the committee, the Liberal senator Claire Chandler, wrote that its members were “deeply moved by the stories shared by witnesses and submitters”.
She said Australia had not only a moral obligation to act but must also “protect Australians from the dangerous and threatening behaviour” of the regime.
The majority report makes 12 recommendations backed by the Coalition and the Greens, including a call for the Australian government to “take the necessary steps to formally categorise the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as an organisation involved in supporting and facilitating terrorism”.
The report said the IRGC was “feared not only by Iranians in Iran, but by people of Iranian descent living all over the world, including Australia”.
The report noted the US had formally proscribed the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organisation in 2019 and Canada did so the following year, while the UK is reportedly planning to follow suit. The idea has also been strongly backed by European parliamentarians.
If the Albanese government took such action, it would be become an offence under Australian law to be a member of, or to provide funds to, the organisation.
“The IRGC is a terrorist organisation and should be recognised as such,” the committee report said.
“Doing so would not just send the right message, it would better empower agencies in Australia to place a greater focus on the IRGC’s activities and operations in Australia.”
But the attorney general’s department questioned the idea in a submission on the eve of the report’s release.
The department secretary, Katherine Jones, said: “The attorney general’s department is of the view that, as an organ of a nation state, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is not the kind of entity that is covered by the terrorist organisation provisions in the criminal code.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also told the inquiry Australia had already imposed targeted financial sanctions on the IRGC, including its overseas arm the Quds Force, since 2012.
The committee acknowledged “conflicting evidence received on whether existing legislation is sufficient” so the government should “explore how best to achieve formal recognition of the IRGC as a terrorism-supporting entity”.
The committee also said it was “deeply concerned about credible allegations of intimidation and threats against Australian citizens, residents and their families”.
In a submission to the inquiry, the Department of Home Affairs said it was “aware of reports that pro-Iranian government informants are surveilling former Iranian residents protesting against the regime in Australia and threatening their relatives in Iran as a result”.
Wednesday’s committee report urged ministers to provide an update to the parliament on the government’s current assessment of whether people connected to the Iranian regime were undertaking such behaviour in Australia.
It also called on the Australian government to work with allies to “improve its policy framework to deter the practice of hostage diplomacy and increase transparency and public awareness of the regimes which engage in hostage diplomacy”.
The report urged the government to increase the intake of Iranians under various visa programs, with a particular focus on women, girls and persecuted minorities seeking to escape the regime. It said Iranians in Australia on temporary visas who could not safely return to Iran should not be required to do so.
It urged Australia to minimise relations with Iran “to the greatest extent possible in recognition of the appalling behaviour of the regime”.
The Greens senator Jordan Steele-John said his party supported all recommendations of the report and urged the government to act on them urgently.
The two Labor members of the committee, senators Raff Ciccone and Nita Green, did not write a formal dissenting report, although they distanced themselves from some of the recommendations. They said they “regret that unlike previous practice in this committee no effort was made to ensure the report and the recommendations included within it were agreeable to all members”.
Ciccone and Green said they agreed with imposing more sanctions on the IRGC but not the formal terrorism designation, citing the evidence from the attorney general’s department about the legal framework.
“Whilst Labor senators take seriously the allegation that the Iranian embassy in Canberra may be being used for the purposes of engaging in nefarious activity, we have confidence in the ability of relevant authorities such as the Australian federal police to appropriately respond to such actions, as is necessary,” they wrote.
“Thus, we concur with the intention of recommendation eleven that any Iranian officials in Australia who are confirmed to be engaging in intimidation, threatening, or monitoring of Australians citizens or residents ought to be expelled from Australia, as is currently the practice.”
The Iranian embassy has been contacted for comment.
Since September, the Australian government has summoned or phoned Iran’s acting ambassador at least 10 times to condemn the violence, the use of the death penalty and the reported harassment of the Iranian diaspora in Australia.
