The government was preparing to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terror group before a sudden change of mind, according to bombshell documents obtained by Sky News.
The move has led to accusations from the Opposition that the government is not being upfront with the public and putting Australians at risk.
The U-turn is revealed in a schedule of documents released by authorities to a Sydney-based member of the Iranian community.
Arash Behgoo was outraged by the government’s refusal to list the group for the reason it gave the Senate in January last year, that “as an organ of a nation state, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not the kind of entity that is covered by the terrorist organisation provisions in the Criminal Code.”
Mr Behgoo lodged a Freedom of Information request with the Attorney-General’s Department in June 2023, requesting access to the documents it relied upon to form its view.
The department responded in August, identifying eight documents that fell within the scope of Mr Behgoo’s request but refusing access, mainly on the grounds of “national security, defence or international relations”.
Among the eight documents were a “Statement of Reasons” form and a “Nomination form – Criminal Code”, both dated January 11, 2023, that the Opposition claim reveal the government had been significantly advanced on a listing of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
According to the protocol for listing a terrorist organisation under the Criminal Code, the Attorney-General must consider a Statement of Reasons and a nomination form must be prepared.
But in the space of less than three weeks, the Attorney-General’s Department appeared to drastically change tack, instead sending a letter to Liberal Senator Claire Chandler on January 31 expressing the view that the IRGC could not be listed for legislative reasons because of its status as an organ of the nation state.
The Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has since refused to provide the documents that were refused to Mr Behgoo to the Senate or to a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on a confidential basis, claiming “public interest immunity”.
“The government is making excuses and is not being upfront about the reasons that it hasn’t listed the IRGC as a terrorist organisation,” Senator Chandler told Sky News.
“It is, frankly, disgraceful that the government won’t provide them on a confidential basis to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. This is a committee that is designed to be able to see this information and have that layer of transparency and accountability over government decision-making in the most sensitive of areas.”
Senator Chandler is among members of the Coalition who have been calling on the government to list the group as a terror organisation since February last year, when the Senate committee she chaired handed down its report into violence in Iran.
The committee had been formed in the wake of Iran’s crackdowns on the uprising that followed the death of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsi Amini, who died in custody following her arrest by morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly.
The committee made 12 recommendations, most notably that the Government took the necessary steps to formally categorise the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
Instead, the government imposed sanctions on four individuals and three entities responsible for oppressing Iranians.
Senator Chandler said she suspects that the Attorney-General’s Department may have been leant on by Foreign Affairs officials, as has been the case in other countries that have stopped short of listing the IRGC as a terror group.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain added the IRGC to its list of terrorist entities.
The following year, the United States designated the IRGC in its entirety as a terrorist organisation and last year called on its allies, including Australia, to follow its lead.
In the UK, hopes from the Home Office to proscribe the IRGC were blocked by the Foreign Office, citing the need to keep communication channels open with Iran, according to reports last year.
Back home, a largely redacted email chain that was provided to Mr Behgoo showed Department of Foreign Affairs officials were involved in a “request for advice” on the issue dated January 19 last year, shortly before the email to Senator Chandler saying the IRGC was an organ of a nation state.
“I suspect that that is one of the reasons that this government in Australia hasn’t listed the IRGC because they think it will be problematic in terms of any relationship that Australia tries to manage with Iran,” Senator Chandler said.
But she warned: “We know that the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] regime are not good faith actors. They are not a good government that Australia should be dealing with on a regular basis. They are a regime that we should be minimizing our relationship with to the greatest extent possible.”
Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and its Revolutionary Guards are at the core of those terror operations.
Among its proxies are Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
In the weeks leading up to the October 7 terror attacks on Israel, hundreds of Hamas fighters received specialised combat training in Iran as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons, according to international media reports.
“Australians should be very concerned that our current government is not willing to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation,” Senator Chandler said.
“We know that this is the entity that is causing significant violence and significant terror in the Middle East right now and we also know that the IRI regime has undertaken foreign interference activities in this country here in Australia and there are questions to be asked about the influence of the IRGC on our own soil.”
Mr Behgoo, who moved to Sydney five years ago with his family, said Australians deserved to know the threat they were facing.
“Many of my fellow Australians may not know about this organisation and it’s my duty, for the sake of our national security, to talk about the risk that I know of,” Mr Behgoo said.
“I consider it my duty to my home to talk about it and to inform others that without a listing under the Criminal Code, the agents of the IRGC can roam freely in Australia and pretty much do whatever they want and they wouldn’t be committing criminal offences.”
He argues the IRGC is not an organ of the Iranian state alone, but one of the Islamic State or Caliphate, and therefore, should be covered by the provisions in the Code.
Others, such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s co-CEO Peter Wertheim, argued that the legislation should not preclude the IRGC being from being listed.
“While an entire nation or its government cannot constitute a terrorist organisation under Australian law, there is no reason why a discrete agency of the government, with its own constitution and organisational structure, cannot be designated as such,” Mr Wertheim told the Australian Jewish News last year.
Mr Behgoo says he is now considering further appealing the decision to reject his access to the documents under the FOI.
“It is not just a bunch of fanatics who have wild ideas – they do things and you can see it all over the world,” Mr Behgoo said.
“You can ignore them, but they won’t ignore you.
“We can and we must list them on our Criminal Code and make sure that we do a great job of enforcing our law because those who neglected this risk, you can see what has become of them.”
A spokesperson for the Attorney-General’s department said it has been long-standing practice that “the department does not comment on whether an organisation is being, or has been, considered for listing as a terrorist organisation.”
Source » skynews