January 17, 2023
The 30-year-old Iranian cousin of a Sydney man has been sentenced to death in Tehran, prompting a broad array of Australian politicians to join an international campaign trying to save his life.
This last-ditch effort comes as Coalition, Greens and teal MPs unite to demand tougher sanctions on Iran after this masthead revealed the mother of a leading Iranian-Australian protester has been jailed in Tehran and interrogated about Australian relatives.
Iran sentenced Majid Kazemi to death on January 9, alleging he was involved in killing three government militia members during one of the protests that erupted after student Mahsa Amini died in police custody last September.
Kazemi told family members he was tortured into giving a false confession, a practice rights agencies said was common.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert, the academic who spent years imprisoned in Iran on espionage charges, said she recently attended an online meeting with Kazemi’s Sydney-based cousin, advisers to Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Labor MP Josh Burns.
“We basically reached out to their office and asked if they would support Majid, given his links to Australia, by expressing concern about his welfare through diplomatic channels. They were certainly interested in assisting,” Moore-Gilbert said.
She said Kazemi had been moved to solitary confinement, which she explained was often a precursor to being executed.
In an audio file reported by international media outlets, Kazemi can be heard explaining how guards tortured him when he gave a confession that would likely be used in court. “They beat [us] again, and we were told to say these in court, all of it under torture. I had no gun and committed nothing. Under torture, I said ‘yes’ to everything,” he said in the audio clip.
Burns has spoken to Kazemi’s relative and said in an interview that the government should constantly review its sanctions to ensure they matched what he described as escalating human rights abuses.
“We’ll continue to watch very closely and the world is watching,” he said. “The recent wave of death penalties is of grave concern to Australia. I’ll continue to work with family members and elevate [Kazemi’s] case to send the clearest of messages.”
Given Kazemi is not an Australian citizen, it is not clear what pressure Australia could exert to save his life. Moore-Gilbert said Wong’s office was considering writing to Iran, an action taken by Liberal senator David Van and Greens foreign affairs spokesman Jordon Steele-John, who had “sponsored” Kazemi and received hundreds of messages from Australian citizens, mostly from the Iranian diaspora, about the case.
“And they are right to do it. The Australian government has so far failed to act with necessary urgency to provide solidarity with the struggle of not only those in the diaspora but those on the ground,” he said.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday that a woman in Iran had been jailed indefinitely and interrogated about her Melbourne-based family, which is active in local protests.
The Coalition’s foreign affairs spokesman, Simon Birmingham, and foreign interference spokesman, James Paterson, said in a joint statement that they were gravely worried by the reports.
“Particularly concerning is the suggestion that this has been enabled by representatives of the regime in Australia,” they wrote. “If these allegations are confirmed, it would constitute serious foreign interference and requires the strongest possible response”.
They promised bipartisan support for an expansion of the government’s existing Magnitsky sanctions that punish individual Iranian officials or the expelling of Iranian embassy officials.
Teal independents Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, and Zoe Daniel said Kazemi’s sentence illustrated the need to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and expand Magnitsky sanctions.
Only the United States, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia have listed the revolutionary guards as a terror organisation. However, UK newspaper The Telegraph reported the UK would list the organisation, Germany indicated it would do so and Canada has informally labelled them a terror outfit.
A DFAT spokesperson said the government had publicly condemned Iran’s use of executions multiple times and raised concerns with its embassy in Canberra.
“Australia will keep advocating strongly in support of the human rights of the Iranian people. We will continue to hold Iran to account, including multilaterally and with partners,” the spokesperson said in a statement, without specifically referring to Kazemi.
Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, whose Menzies electorate in Melbourne’s east has a large Iranian-background population, praised courageous Iranian Australians for calling out what he described as foreign interference to thwart protests.
Ryan said she had heard many credible reports of Iranian Australians being surveilled at local protests and questioned why the Australian Federal Police and other authorities were not acting to help Australians feel safe in their own cities.
“We wouldn’t put up with it from other foreign governments why would we put up with it from Iran?” she said.
Daniel urged the government to warn Iran it could not continue a good-faith diplomatic relationship if it continued what she called cross-border intimidation.
