Last week I quietly marked the fifth anniversary of my freedom from prison in Iran. November 25 was on the surface a day like any other, unremarkable to most family and friends, but to me this date is more significant than my own birthday.

It has been five years since I was pulled, blindfolded and handcuffed, from a solitary confinement cell in Evin prison, thrown into the back of a car and, after an abortive attempt to film a propaganda video in front of the prison gates, deposited outside the Australian ambassador’s residence in downtown Tehran.

It has been five years of learning to breathe deeply again, five years of shaky normalcy, five years of clawing back a life I wasn’t sure I’d have a second chance at living. Five years of reckoning with who had stood up for me and who had been silent. Five years of awe, discombobulation and finally, renewal.

Many of the heightened emotions of the early days post-captivity have faded into the background, overcome by new routines and the slow-moving balm of time. One sensation, however, stubbornly refuses to fade: Anger. At those who stole 2½ years of my life (and far more from countless other victims). At those who continue to turn a blind eye to Iran’s hostage diplomacy. At those who to this day provide material and rhetorical support to my captors, including from here in Australia.

Last week, the Australian government gave me a most welcome anniversary present. Five years to the day that I landed back in Australia, the attorney-general, foreign minister and home affairs minister announced that the government had officially listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the group that took me hostage, as a state sponsor of terrorism.

This much-anticipated listing came after parliament passed the Criminal Code Amendment (State Sponsors of Terrorism) Act in early November. Legislative change was required as previously only non-state actors could be proscribed as terrorist organisations under Australian law.

For me, and other victims of the IRGC in Australia, our country’s strong stance against atrocities committed against us by the Iranian state is both a recognition and a vindication.

The Iranian-Australian community has long been vocal in calling on the government to act against the IRGC, and many thought this day would never come. Since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in Iran, activists have held protests across all of Australia’s major cities, lobbied MPs and senators, convened community consultations, parliamentary roundtables and a 2023 Senate inquiry into Iran’s human rights abuses.

Advocates have been sounding the alarm for years about the increasingly brazen activities of IRGC affiliates on Australian soil, including surveillance, harassment and intimidation of dissidents and threats to family members in Iran as a result of Australia-based political activism. In addition to prominent critics of the regime, Australia-based minority religious and ethnic groups have also been targeted, including the Ahwazi Arab, Baha’i and Kurdish communities.

While the recognition that those who wrongfully imprisoned me are now considered terrorists in the eyes of my government goes some way to assuaging my anger, the Iranian activists I have spoken with all note that proscribing the IRGC is just the first step. If the government is serious about removing the threat posed by the IRGC, its ideological supporters and the network of criminal proxies it has used to do its dirty work, it must now crack down on the group’s operations here in Australia.

While it was the revelation that the IRGC had commissioned arson attacks on Jewish targets, including the shocking firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024, that led the government to finally act to list the group, it is the Iranian-Australian community that has long been the group’s principal focus.

The 2023 Senate inquiry received a whopping 1135 submissions, of which, tellingly, 797 were marked as “name withheld”. A further 117 were classified as “confidential” and not made public.

The continuing fear of being targeted by the IRGC is real. I reached out to several contacts whom I knew had also been imprisoned by the IRGC in the past, and none would go on the record to express their deep satisfaction at the group’s terrorism listing.

The government’s press release states explicitly that it is now an offence to “direct the activities of, be a member of, associate with members of, recruit for, train with, get funds to, from or for, or provide support to” the IRGC, with penalties of up to 25 years in prison.

The names of many former and current members of the Revolutionary Guards, including some who have served in the IRGC’s armed forces or affiliated Basij militia, are known to the Iranian diaspora in Australia. Just last month, online activists exposed Hanieh Safavi, daughter of IRGC Major General Rahim Safavi who has been sanctioned by Australia since 2023, practising as a counsellor in Queensland.

Safavi is not the only close family member of a senior IRGC commander to move to Australia. Eshaq Ghalibaf, son of IRGC Airforce Commander and current Iranian Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, is reported to have lived in Melbourne for a number of years, where he still owns property and maintains accounts with both NAB and ANZ.

This masthead is not suggesting that either individual is themselves a member of the IRGC or that they have committed an offence in Australia. But as it is now an offence to “associate with members of” the IRGC, questions should be asked about how the offspring of high-ranking IRGC military commanders obtained Australian visas, whether these visas remain valid, and whether these individuals are or have been involved in the IRGC’s well-documented engagement in terrorism, transnational repression, sanctions evasion, corruption or money-laundering during their time in Australia.

For the first time in five years, I feel optimistic about the Iranian threat to Australia, including to me personally as a private citizen. Listing the Revolutionary Guard as a state sponsor of terrorism gives me hope that the government and security agencies are finally ready to act to protect those of us who have been targeted by the long and unforgiving hand of the Islamic Republic. After which, just maybe, I will be able to move on from my anger.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert is an academic in Middle Eastern political science at Macquarie University and the author of memoir The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison.

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