TRANSCRIPT
In his annual threat assessment, ASIO's Director General of Security Mike Burgess said more Australians are being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than ever before.
"When we see more Australians targeted by espionage and foreign interference than ever before, we have a responsibility to call it out. Australians need to know that the threat is real. The threat is now. And the threat is deeper and broader than you might think. Ask the Australian business owners who have been bankrupted or nearly bankrupted because spies stole their intellectual property. Ask the Australians who have been tracked, harassed and intimidated for daring to criticise a foreign regime. Or ask the thousands of Australians who have received online friend requests from spies in disguise."
Nos Hosseini has drawn the ire of the Iranian government simply for speaking out against it.
She says late last year, a chilling warning was planted at her parents' home in Melbourne.
"My parents had a decapitated animal delivered to their doorstep. My sister received messages from our relatives in Iran who were taken away for questioning and they were told, did your relatives like that nice little surprise that we left on your doorstep? "
She says it was quite confronting and signified a threat.
SBS has sighted an image of the animal.
Sources have told SBS incidents of foreign interference have rapidly escalated since members of the Iranian community in Australia led protests in solidarity with the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, sparked by the suspicious death in custody of Mahsa Jina Amini, arrested for not correctly wearing her hijab.
"The regime's spy networks are quite strong and quite active in Australia. They infiltrate the protests, they've been openly taking multiple photos of activists. We've had protesters assaulted here in Australia, we've had protest organisers followed and their cars have been vandalised."
Dara Conduit is a Middle East specialist at the University of Melbourne.
She says Iran's global foreign interference efforts are centrally organised through official government agencies and also carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the IRGC, a branch of the state's armed forces but separate to Iran's military.
"There is three key ways Iran has carried out foreign interference - from targeted assassination plots, some which have tragically been successful, globally, threatening of family members of diaspora members, and the third key way is I guess using technology."
Saba Vasefi was forced to flee Iran in 2010 due to her work with women on death row.
She says she is still being monitored.
"I've experienced two different types of harassment, online harassment and physical harassment / including stalking me."
SBS has been shown extreme online harassment on Saba's social media accounts.
Saba says one of her trolls was tracked by law enforcement agencies.
"They told me that person was previously in Australia but now that person is in Iran. They told me if people flagged their names it would be difficult for them to get back to Australia. That's why I think people should report to the federal police and department of home affairs because in that way the government would be able to navigate their network."
The government has set up a counter foreign interference taskforce, which together with ASIO and the Australian Federal police aims to disrupt any suspicious activity - but also inform the community about how to report it.
A statement from the department of home affairs says culturally and linguistically diverse communities face unique threats and issues arising from foreign interference, with some foreign powers or their proxies seeking to silence, intimidate, monitor or harass members of the community that they see as dissidents.
Last year the Federal Government took the highly unusual step of singling out one country, with Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil announcing this in her February 2023 address:
"We see it by many countries around the world and Iran is one of them."
In an exclusive interview with SBS Persian, the Iranian Ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, denied foreign interference is being carried out in Australia from the Iranian government.
"No! No! foreign interference from Iran here is not relevant. By no means, under no circumstances."
The federal opposition's Assistant spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Claire Chandler, urged the Iranian ambassador to read the results of the Senate inquiry into human rights implications of recent violence in Iran and had this message to the Australian government:
"The government needs to be clear-eyed and transparent about its interactions with embassy officials here in Australia. The government needs to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation we also believe the government should be utilising the full suite of sanctions it has available to it."
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil is responsible for leading the government’s efforts to counter foreign interference.
SBS requested an interview early last week to put these questions to her but were declined an interview.
We put some of our questions to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.
"Foreign interference can occur in Australia, and we have measures to ensure that it doesn't and our security agencies are very diligent in doing work and reporting through our national security committee processes about these issues."
Asked if the government would list the IRGC as a terror organisation, Mr Albanese had this to say:
"Look we have vigilant processes, through the listing of organisations. We go through those processes, appropriately, including through the national security based upon advice."
Iran has a long history of plotting and carrying out assassinations against individuals globally, and experts like Daniela Gavshon, the Australia Director at Human Rights Watch, warn if left unchecked, these events could continue to rise.
"If governments can get away with silencing journalists, human rights defenders and people beyond their borders, it really means nowhere is safe."
Sydney-based activist Mohammad Hashemi knows this limbo.
His cousin Majid Kazemi was executed by the government in Iran last year following his arrest during a Woman, Life, Freedom protest.
While in custody, Kazemi's family says he was interrogated about Mohammad's activism in Australia.
And now, operatives delivered this message to Mohammad's father in Iran.
"They told my father that they knew everything about Mohammad, what he is doing in Australia, where he lives, what his job is. If he won't stop, we have a mission to go to Australia and kidnap him and take him back to Iran."
Foreign interference has been been called the greatest threat against social cohesion in Australia.
Members of the Rwandan community have told SBS they fear for their lives, targeted by a network of agents recruited by the Rwandan government on Australian soil.
Noël Zihabamwe is desperately searching for his brothers who have disappeared in Rwanda.
He believes they were abducted by the Rwandan government to punish him for refusing to become an agent for President Paul Kagame's spy network in Australia.
"They tried many times to corrupt me, to make me be who they wanted me to be, but I refused. And by refusing, I was seen as an enemy of the country, as a person who is threatening the Rwandan image overseas and therefore, to them I was an enemy of the state."
Despite living in Australia, Noël is also concerned about his own security.
He says he receives a constant barrage of threats and intimidation from the Rwandan government, and claims in 2017 the then-Rwandan High Commissioner to Australia made a public declaration at a community event in Sydney, suggesting that if he had a gun, he would shoot Noël.
Sources say the Rwandan diaspora is encouraged to join the Rwandan Community Abroad, a group linked to Mr Kagame's government.
They are required to take an oath of allegiance to the governing party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, if they want to be viewed favourably by the regime.
Amiel Nubaha is Chair of the Federation of Rwandan Communities in Australia:
(It's) "a very complex network which has people who would have come here as refugees, people who may have come through other various regimes, people may have come here as students, people who may have come here to work. It manifests through an atmosphere of coercion: to enjoy these privileges, you will do this to be able to move freely."
Pamphile Ngenzi is President of the Rwandan Association of Queensland.
"You have to know where you go, who is sitting next to you, you have to know their position. The community is not united the way it should be. In July last year we had a cultural event here, and we received some messages really threatening the community and asking them not to take food (eat) because they think it is poisoned."
Sources say the Rwandan government also creates smear campaigns against those who don't support it.
Rwandan community member Cardinal Uwishaka says it divides the expat community via a government issued 'diaspora card'.
"If you don't have that card you can't access any public service back home. They get to know exactly who is abroad and also get to know who is with them and who is not."
A statement from the Rwandan High Commission in Singapore, which is accredited to Australia, describes these allegations as 'nonsense', saying:
"The Rwandan community abroad contributes over $450 million to the Rwandan economy in remittances ... and 'despite distortions and disinformation on Rwanda’s efforts by detractors', national unity is a priorty for the country."
Daniela Gavshon is from from Human Rights Watch:
"Three decades of human rights abuses in Rwanda and impunity for them, and then their increasing position on the international stage has emboldened them. They're now suppressing dissent outside their borders. If they continue to get away with that, it's just going to continue."
Robert Mukombozi is a former journalist and member of the exiled Rwandan National Congress opposition party.
He says he is actively hunted by the Rwandan government, in Australia and abroad.
"In April 2022, I visited Uganda to see family only to be surrounded by soldiers who took me to a military facility, saying they had credible information that I was going to be assassinated. I had no option but to return to Australia, so that's the kind of life that we live."
He says the Australian government isn't doing enough to remove Rwandan operatives.
"I'm not just surveilled, my gadgets hacked in Australia, and profiled. The risk of physical violence or physical harm on individuals in this country is very possible. The community is crying out loud for us to push back."
A statement from the Department of Home Affairs says:
It "regularly engages with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, who are concerned about the threats of foreign interference to build community awareness and resilience" ... and it would "continue to take strong action to deter foreign interference, protect the Australian community and uphold our laws and values".
But for Noël Zihabamwe, he's taken matters into his own hands.
In a quest to protect others and for answers about his missing brothers, he's enlisted the help of high-profile barrister Jennifer Robinson.
She says they've filed a complaint to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in 2021.
"It's important that people are brave enough to stand up and say this is not ok and to raise their case at the UN, and of course its the UN's role, because the Rwandan government is not properly investigating these cases; more often than not they're complicit in them and are trying to cover up the truth."
The Rwandan government denies involvement.
"This year it is going to be five years, without knowing where my two brothers may be. I think that they have died."
Cambodia's government has been listed as one of the world's top perpetrators of transnational repression.
Sources tell SBS agents working for the ruling Cambodian People's Party are attempting to silence critics here in Australia.
The last visit from Cambodia's head of government was in 2018, when then-prime minister Hun Sen threatened to follow and 'beat up' protesters if they burnt his effigy.
Next week, his son and new prime minister Hun Manet is due in Australia for the ASEAN-Special Summit, stoking fear among some of the diaspora of an increase in surveillance and intimidation.
Former Victorian Labor MP Hong Lim, an outspoken critic of the Cambodian Government, has watched other pro-democracy voices living overseas become silenced - threatened, assaulted, detained and even murdered.
"If they dare to send people brazenly hitting people in another country, why wouldn't they do it in Melbourne?"
Hong says he is being systematically targeted by members of the Cambodian People's Party, based both in Australia and abroad.
He has been charged in absentia with incitement.
And he says he's also received death threats, but isn't certain of the source.
The same death threat was sent to Victorian state MP Meng Heang Tak before Cambodia's elections, held with no credible opposition in July last year.
Meng Heang Tak reads part of the letter.
"A hit list has been prepared to solve many problems that you and so-called democratic voice in Australia and around the world ... so these people, including yourself, will be targeted for death by my Cambodian third hand squad who will be flying there to do the cleanup."
Sources have told SBS agents for the Cambodian People's Party in Australia actively recruit members of the diaspora to ensure their allegiance to the regime.
Sources also say regime-appointed senior officials monitor them in each state and territory except Tasmania, through a sophisticated surveillance network.
Officials are in charge of data collection, or in other words, reporting back about critics to censor any opposition.
But the Cambodian Ambassador to Australia, Chanborey Cheunboran, has this to say:
"Monitoring or surveillance are terms I think are misinforming or misguiding. We are working closely with community leaders across Australia because we believe community engagement is crucial for Cambodia's social economic development, for enhanced Cambodian-Australian bilateral ties."
Meng Heang Tak says the network operates secretively.
"They operate in a very secretive way, but one thing that we observe is they don't shy away from putting these network activities on Facebook."
Facebook posts display meetings in Australia, members wearing the Party uniform, including the Cambodian Ambassador to Australia.
One post shows a list of pro-democracy voices in Australia, in the background of what sources have told SBS is a Sydney branch-meeting.
One of those pictured is Hemara In, a leader of the Cambodian political opposition, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, based in Melbourne.
He says he has been accused by the Cambodian government of conspiring to commit an act of treason.
"I see this charge as holding me in ransom, to keep me being scared, to instill fear in other people so we don't speak out against him. It's baseless. As a matter of fact, I love my country, I will do everything I could to help Cambodia see human rights being respected."
But standing up for democracy has come at a cost, limiting his freedom of movement and association by the government punishing family members in Cambodia for the actions of their relatives abroad.
Ahead of the ASEAN-Special Summit in Melbourne, to be attended by the Cambodian Prime Minister, some members of the diaspora fear this visit will only see surveillance and interference increase.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended the attendance list:
"Every Asean Leader is being invited to the Australian ASEAN Summit and I think the idea that we don't engage in South-East Asia would be a counter-productive one."
Federal Labor MP Julian Hill has long been an advocate for the Cambodian community in Australia, with his seat once holding a large number of the diaspora.
"We should not be granting visas to people who are coming here the primary purpose of which is impacting and influencing and interfering with the rights of Australian citizens."
A spokesperson for the department of Home Affairs says the Australian Government will continue to act decisively to protect the community from the risk of harm posed by individuals who choose to engage in criminal activity or behaviour of concern, including with visa cancellation or refusal where appropriate.
At a pro-democracy function in Sydney, an opposition leader in exile, Mu Sochua hopes to embolden the diaspora.
She has this message for the Australian government.
"Your foreign relations rely on the hope that Cambodia will change, that Hun Sen will change, that Hun Manet the son will be different from his father. That is being tolerant to dictators."
The Cambodian government says it is building a legacy of "peace and development" - not the experience of those who fled to Australia to find safety.
