Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. Australia
Speaker 1: acted against Iran after ASIO found Tehran orchestrated two anti
Speaker 1: Semitic arson attacks on Australian soil, expelling Iran's ambassador and
Speaker 1: moving to lists the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a
Speaker 1: terrorist organization. For Carlie Moore Gilbert, it's a long time coming.
Speaker 2: She spent eight hundred and four days in prison under
Speaker 2: IRGC control after being arrested in Tehran on charges of espionage.
Speaker 2: Today she explains who the IIGC are, why they would
Speaker 2: attack Australia, and what this listing would actually change. It's Thursday,
Speaker 2: September four So, Kylie, you spent more than two years
Speaker 2: in prison in Iran. Could you tell me a bit
Speaker 2: about your dealings with the iig during that time.
Speaker 3: So, I unfortunately know the intelligence organization of the IIGC
Speaker 3: very well because I lived with them, lived alongside them
Speaker 3: for more than two years of my life. I was
Speaker 3: arrested by IGC at the Tehran airport in September twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: The Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed it is providing
Speaker 4: consular assistance to the families of three Australians who have
Speaker 4: been detained in Iran. A British Australian academic is believed
Speaker 4: to have been detained for several months now.
Speaker 3: And they imprisoned me in a facility that was run
Speaker 3: exclusively by them, with prison guards that were members of
Speaker 3: their organization.
Speaker 5: Doctor more Gilbert has spent almost a year in solitary
Speaker 5: confinement in Tehran's notorious Even Prison. It's understood she was
Speaker 5: arrested after traveling to Iran to attend a course about
Speaker 5: two hours from Tehran.
Speaker 3: Nearly the entire two years and three months that I
Speaker 3: spent in prison in Iran was under their direct control.
Speaker 3: So I had many, many conversations with them, with all
Speaker 3: kinds of different factions and individuals within that organization, and
Speaker 3: got a pretty good handle on their frankly quite bonkers
Speaker 3: and crazy at times worldview. And you know they are
Speaker 3: at terror organization. There's no doubt about that. They have
Speaker 3: been for decades. I think it's been a really really
Speaker 3: long time coming to recognize this in Australia, but I
Speaker 3: think it's really warranted and I hope it will enable
Speaker 3: the government to crack down a little bit on some
Speaker 3: of their activities.
Speaker 2: Here, and so during your time in prison, what kinds
Speaker 2: of things did the IGC guards ask you about.
Speaker 3: Well, they interrogated me. So I was thrown in prison,
Speaker 3: thrown into solitary confinement, and much later down the track,
Speaker 3: let's say, six months later, accused of espionage. But after
Speaker 3: I had been given a ten year prison sentence, I
Speaker 3: spent quite a bit of time just waiting for something
Speaker 3: to happen. I guess, you know, like hanging out, for
Speaker 3: want of a better term, in this interrogation facility, talking
Speaker 3: to my captors, talking to my interrogators, but also the
Speaker 3: regular prison guards, the administrators of the prison, the people
Speaker 3: who run the system, judiciary officials, all kinds of people
Speaker 3: within the IOGC apparatus. And you know, we would talk politics,
Speaker 3: we would talk history, They would want my views on
Speaker 3: certain world events and the conspiracy theory mindset that the
Speaker 3: IGC have is just incomprehensible to most of us living
Speaker 3: here in Australia. But my impression overall was that they
Speaker 3: weren't particularly negative toward Australia. They obviously don't have positive
Speaker 3: relations with the United States and Israel and to a
Speaker 3: certain extent, the UK. They also really hated Saudi Arabia
Speaker 3: at the time I was there, and so they would
Speaker 3: often rant and rave about them as well. But they
Speaker 3: saw us as a bit of a lackey of the US.
Speaker 3: But they didn't have particularly negative ideas about Australia.
Speaker 2: And just to take a little step back, could you
Speaker 2: tell me a bit more just about the io DC
Speaker 2: and the power that they have in Iran, the way
Speaker 2: they operate.
Speaker 3: So the IGC are essentially a state within a state
Speaker 3: within Iran right now. They started off as an armed
Speaker 3: militant group, particularly following the seventy nine revolution.
Speaker 6: The end of Iran's monarchy came early today when Harmonia's
Speaker 6: followers took control of the Palace of the Shah.
Speaker 3: They basically are charged with ensuring the success of the revolution,
Speaker 3: protecting the Supreme Leader, protecting all the revolutionary institutions that
Speaker 3: were set up in the wake of the fall of
Speaker 3: the Shah that the previous ruler of Iran.
Speaker 6: Relations between Iran and Iraq worsened when the Iotolas took over.
Speaker 6: The Iraqis claimed that the Iranians were refusing to implement
Speaker 6: border agreements, and the first skirmishes broke out.
Speaker 3: Then you know you had eight years of war with
Speaker 3: Saddam Hussein's Iraq shortly afterwards, and they were a prominent
Speaker 3: military force in that war.
Speaker 6: Deep in Iranian territory. Iraqi Arma chalks out fresh successes
Speaker 6: on the battlefield. For once, an Arab army is inflicting
Speaker 6: territorial laws on the enemy. The enmity here between Arab
Speaker 6: and Persian as old as that between Arab and Jews.
Speaker 3: So they got all kinds of weapons and real world
Speaker 3: battle experience from that. And so when the war came
Speaker 3: to an end in nineteen eighty nine, they were kind
Speaker 3: of an unstoppable force. You couldn't put the genie back
Speaker 3: in the bottle. At that point you had this rival
Speaker 3: armed organization to the Uranian military that answered only to
Speaker 3: the Supreme Leader and still does. I mean, the Uranian
Speaker 3: government has no control over the IGC. They do what
Speaker 3: they want, They have their own policies, they have their
Speaker 3: own interests. They run parallel systems to the government. So
Speaker 3: they have their own court system, their own prison system.
Speaker 3: There are an intelligence organization, for example, and get away
Speaker 3: with terrorism and all kinds.
Speaker 7: Of other nefarious behaviors as a result. And so after
Speaker 7: you were released and you returned to Australia. Did you
Speaker 7: have conversations with the Australian government about the IIGC.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I was obviously wrongfully detained by them, and so when
Speaker 3: I came back from my time in Iran, I was
Speaker 3: vocal about calling out this behavior, and particularly following the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two Masamini Woman Life Freedom Uprising in Iran,
Speaker 3: which saw you know, hundreds of thousands of Iranians take
Speaker 3: to the streets to call for freedoms and women's rights,
Speaker 3: gender equality and ultimately the removal of the regime altogether.
Speaker 3: And the IOGC was very instrumental in putting down violently
Speaker 3: these protests.
Speaker 2: Iran's government has cracked down in the streets with force
Speaker 2: because the numbers have wounded, arrested, and even dad mount.
Speaker 3: You know, they killed more than five hundred people, shooting
Speaker 3: them in the streets, including children, imprisoned more than twenty thousand,
Speaker 3: committing horrific atrocities basically, and the Australian government was watching
Speaker 3: this and was being lobbied quite actively by the Iranian
Speaker 3: Australian community, particularly over theo GC and its reach into
Speaker 3: Australia and its ability to surveil and threaten and harass
Speaker 3: Iranian Australian community members, for example. And there was a
Speaker 3: Senate inquiry into Irounds human rights abuses in twenty two
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, and I contributed to that inquiry, and
Speaker 3: ultimately the inquiry's adopted recommendation was to prescribe the IOGC
Speaker 3: as a terror organization and to limit the ability of
Speaker 3: people within Australia to support it and to work on
Speaker 3: its behalf.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a bit more about that, about
Speaker 2: the impact of the IGC on Iranians in Australia or
Speaker 2: Rani in Australians.
Speaker 3: So you know, they've been present on the ground here
Speaker 3: for a while. They openly admitted as such to me
Speaker 3: when I was in prison in Iran. They said, you know,
Speaker 3: they would threaten me and say that they could target
Speaker 3: me back here on Australian soil if I came home
Speaker 3: and didn't do what they said or what they wanted.
Speaker 3: They have operatives and sympathizers and informers here in Australia.
Speaker 3: It's a deliberate strategy for them to place such people here.
Speaker 3: It's not coincidental, and they monitor the Iranian community here.
Speaker 3: They want to know what dissidents and protesters and community
Speaker 3: organizations that are against the regime a doing. They keep
Speaker 3: files and information on these people. They try and blackmail them,
Speaker 3: particularly using family members back in Iran to get them
Speaker 3: to stay silent, not to cease their activities, and they've
Speaker 3: become more aggressive in their tactics, so really harassing people,
Speaker 3: not just monitoring, but threatening to kidnap people from Australia
Speaker 3: and take them back to Iran, threatening to jail and
Speaker 3: imprisoned family members, following people in the streets, even getting
Speaker 3: into physical altercations with them, photographing them against their will,
Speaker 3: using every kind of tactic they can to put pressure
Speaker 3: on people living here in Australia who do have the
Speaker 3: right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, but
Speaker 3: letting them know that they're being watched and followed and
Speaker 3: that there are ramifications back home in Iran or even
Speaker 3: here on Australian soil for their political activity.
Speaker 2: Coming up, What impact will listing the IRGC as a
Speaker 2: terror organization actually have? Kylie the Australian government and AZO.
Speaker 2: They say that the intent behind the antisemitic attacks here
Speaker 2: in Australia was to sow social discord. So tell me
Speaker 2: what you make of that motivation. Why would that be
Speaker 2: the goal of the IRGC.
Speaker 3: I think the IGC, you know, they so discord wherever
Speaker 3: they go. I mean, I don't think it's their primary
Speaker 3: goal necessarily, but they care I think more about intimidating
Speaker 3: certain community groups in Australia rather than necessarily every Australian equally.
Speaker 3: Since October seventh, as part of this shadow war with Israel,
Speaker 3: I think they just added the Jewish community to that
Speaker 3: list of targets. You know, anti Semitism is very deeply
Speaker 3: baked in to the igc's ideology, and it's much much
Speaker 3: easier for them to come to Australia, to a place
Speaker 3: like Melbourne where people are living in relative freedom and safety,
Speaker 3: and pay criminal elements to have these attacks than it
Speaker 3: is for them to go to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem
Speaker 3: and do the same thing over there. And I just
Speaker 3: think it's opportunism and it works, and it's relatively cheap
Speaker 3: for them to do as well.
Speaker 2: So why not, Okay, tell me a bit more about
Speaker 2: what we know about the iigc's activities in other countries.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's a really important point actually that this is
Speaker 3: not confined to Australia. You know, Australia is not the
Speaker 3: number one target of the IOGC, but they've been doing here,
Speaker 3: particularly the sponsorship of anti synitic attacks, but using organized
Speaker 3: crime criminal syndicates to conduct attacks. It's a pattern that
Speaker 3: we've seen years earlier in parts of Europe and North America.
Speaker 3: We have seen, in particular in the UK, targeted campaigns
Speaker 3: by criminal gangs to physically assault journalists, particularly journalists of
Speaker 3: Iran International, which is a dissident or an independent media
Speaker 3: channel that has deep penetration in Iran. It's the number
Speaker 3: one watch satellite channel inside Iran and it's anti regime
Speaker 3: and they had their headquarters in the UK and one
Speaker 3: of their journalists was stabbed multiple times in the street
Speaker 3: by criminal elements that had been paid by the IRGC
Speaker 3: to attack him.
Speaker 8: The Iranian journalist was attacked outside his home in London
Speaker 8: at the end of last month. It's a stark reminder
Speaker 8: of the danger facing many Iranians who choose to criticize
Speaker 8: the regime in Tehran.
Speaker 3: Very prominent, outspoken distance who've been given a refugee vis
Speaker 3: or abroad or they've migrated, and they've become extremely vocal
Speaker 3: since then, have been threatened and attacked by IRGC and
Speaker 3: criminal elements working for them, and there are cases of them,
Speaker 3: particularly in places like Germany, actually killing people that are
Speaker 3: critics of the Iranian regime. So this has a long
Speaker 3: history and it's far more developed in other parts of
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: In Australia, and what do you think the impact will
Speaker 2: be of listing the IOGC as a terrorist organization, both
Speaker 2: for Iranians in Australia and anyone in Iran with connections
Speaker 2: to Australia.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's going to have a huge impact
Speaker 3: on most Iranians in Australia because most Iranians in Australia
Speaker 3: do not support the IOGC or the regime in Iran,
Speaker 3: and they're happy about this. I mean, I mean, I've
Speaker 3: seen multiple numerous statements by Iranian Australian organizations, politically engaged
Speaker 3: or not. You know, some of them are just cultural organizations,
Speaker 3: but they're in support of this in full. You know,
Speaker 3: they want the IOGC to be listed, they want the
Speaker 3: ambassador to be kicked out. What it might impact in
Speaker 3: a positive way, however, is the ability for the IOGC
Speaker 3: to send people who've been blackmailed or exploited or convinced
Speaker 3: coerced into acting on behalf of the IOGC. Here in Australia,
Speaker 3: it's much harder to do that if this is a
Speaker 3: listed terror organization, and the repercussions for that are greater.
Speaker 3: I think there's only ever been one person charged under
Speaker 3: foreign interference laws in Australia and that case is ongoing
Speaker 3: right now. It's a new area. There hasn't been great
Speaker 3: appetite to go after these people in the past who
Speaker 3: are doing foreign interference and you know, harassment of ethnic communities, etc.
Speaker 2: But if it's a terror.
Speaker 3: Organization, I mean, that's a whole nother ballgame. And if
Speaker 3: you're providing material support to a listed terror organization, that's
Speaker 3: a highly serious charge.
Speaker 2: And critics of the Iranian regime have been calling for
Speaker 2: the IRGC to be listed as a terrorist organization for
Speaker 2: a long time, but for years the government opted to
Speaker 2: try and I guess keep lines of diplomacy open. But
Speaker 2: given that they have now cut ties and kicked out
Speaker 2: the ambassador, what does that say to you about the
Speaker 2: limits of diplomacy when you're dealing with a regime like this.
Speaker 3: This is a regime that doesn't respect diplomacy and probably
Speaker 3: doesn't even understand diplomacy, you know, the premise of open
Speaker 3: discussion and cooperation and respect for mutually agreed laws and
Speaker 3: norms that diplomacy is predicated upon. This is not respected
Speaker 3: by the IOGC and probably by the Iranian regime or
Speaker 3: broadly either. They've shown themselves on multiple occasions to not
Speaker 3: give a damn soever about fundamentals of international law that
Speaker 3: they themselves have signed up to. The particular concern I
Speaker 3: have is that we do have at least one Australian
Speaker 3: citizen in prison in Iran right now who's been there
Speaker 3: for three years plus, and the lack of an embassy,
Speaker 3: the lack of consular assistance there now for this individual,
Speaker 3: and also the lack of that channel of communication around
Speaker 3: negotiating his release, It really concerns me. Is this going
Speaker 3: to set back any efforts that were underway? So we
Speaker 3: do need some communication with the Ranians over such issues.
Speaker 3: I do hope that it won't implode entirely, and we
Speaker 3: are keeping three junior officials in the embassy. In camera
Speaker 3: kicked all Iranian diplomats out of Australia, so hopefully that's
Speaker 3: a sign that it might be more of a low
Speaker 3: level relationship, but that some channel of communication will remain
Speaker 3: open for these important mutual interests.
Speaker 2: Kylie, thank you so much. Fatian, thanks so much for
Speaker 2: having me. Also in the news today, China's president Shi
Speaker 2: Jinping has hosted the country's largest ever military parade, flanked
Speaker 2: by North Koreas Kim Jong Un and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 2: In a post on truth social US President Donald Trump
Speaker 2: asked China's leader to give mister Putin and mister Kim
Speaker 2: his rule most regards as they conspire against the United
Speaker 2: States of America. Former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was among
Speaker 2: those who attended, and the federal government will immediately fund
Speaker 2: twenty thousand more home care packages to support older Australians
Speaker 2: living at home. Cave in too pressure from across the parliament.
Speaker 2: The Coalition Greens and Independence teamed up to demand the
Speaker 2: government fund more packages after new packages were delayed alongside
Speaker 2: broader reforms. From July to November. The government had promised
Speaker 2: eighty three thousand new packages as part of its broader reforms,
Speaker 2: but following the delay, none were released, adding pressure to
Speaker 2: a wait list that had grown from eighty seven thousand
Speaker 2: in March to one hundred and eight thousand in July.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones. Thanks for listening.