‘My pain has become inconvenient’: Iranian Greens councillor Tina Kordrostami quits minor party

Iranian-born Sydney councillor Tina Kordrostami quits the minor party and decries the ‘two extremes’ being taken in the Middle East crisis, calling for a ‘third option’.

Iranian-born refugee and Ryde City councillor Tina Kordrostami has quit the Greens over their support of the brutal Iranian regime and its terror proxies. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Greens activist and Iranian-born Sydney councillor Tina Kordrostami has quit the minor party over its handling of the Middle East crisis and its failure to condemn the Iranian regime or terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, declaring the pain she and other Iranian-Australians felt was increasingly “inconvenient” for the Greens.

The prominent Greens member, who says she has informed much of the party’s stance on Iran since she joined in 2022, revealed her discomfort with the “opportunism” of the Greens political movement after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

Despite being a staunch advocate for Palestinians and broader human rights, Ms Kordrostami said she was concerned by the idea that the Greens were “aligning themselves with oppressive narratives” for the sake of allyship with Gaza.

“In 2023, after October 7, the first thing I did was reach out to Palestine Action Group to see if they wanted help. I went to their initial meetings planning and organising the rallies taking place on a weekly basis and quickly realised there were members of the (Iranian) regime attending this rally, so out of fear I stopped attending,” Ms Kordrostami, whose family fled Iran 25 years ago, told The Australian.

Ms Kordrostami has over the years reported multiple instances of stalking and intimidation by foreign operatives – undertaken in-person and online – to the NSW Police Force.

Comments on her social media include threats such as “we will find you”.

Despite her concerns about the “blurring of lines” after attending the rally in 2023, Ms Kordrostami said she didn’t leave the party out of recognition for how severe the situation in Gaza was.

“I tried instead to educate everyone internally, talking about the Iranian regime. But it was just getting worse and worse,” said Ms Kordrostami, who was elected on the Greens ticket for the Ryde before quitting to become an independent last month.

“When this year the war broke out in Iran, things escalated and that was the breaking point for me.”

Tina and her parents before arriving in Australia.

Her attempts at education included discussions with federal Greens MPs.

“It’s not enough to say Israel is doing this and bringing things to this point; I told (the Greens) you need to say ‘we are also here because of the actions of the (Iranian) regime over four decades’,” she said.

“At very least say ‘we stand against Israel and Islamic regime’, you need to be very specific and they … were refusing to do so.”

The Sydney resident and architect said she was shocked by the failure to condemn Iran and its actions, reminding politicians that “in the middle of a war (women) are being imprisoned for their hair showing”.

“The last straw for me was at a Palestine rally. I went there because it was two to three days after war started in Iran and I wanted to see for myself what was happening at these rallies,” she said.

“More than half of the population at the rally were regime supporters. There were posters of the Supreme Leader.

“You are forced to leave your country, or you’ve been exiled at the hands of the Supreme Leader, and you go to new country to put all that trauma aside to start a new life. Then the poster of this person is being supported so loudly at a rally in the city you call home, it’s a major step up … it was a massive shock to me.”

Ms Kordrostami said what made matters worse was the fact that she saw members of her fellow Iranian community who were not regime supporters forced to “walk shoulder to shoulder” with those who were aligned with their oppressors because they had “nowhere else to go” to protest the treatment of Palestinians.

“They are forced to walk next to people they are disgusted by,” she said.

“This is all about political convenience. There is an established rally that takes place every week and it’s a massive platform for anyone to speak at. The Greens, instead of creating a new rally or vigil and being specific about what they accept at this rally and don’t, out of political convenience they go to these rallies.

“And when they get to the microphone, they don’t go out of their way to clarify their position. You’ll never hear a member of the Greens speak about Hamas, Hezbollah or the regime and they do that so they can support both sides. It’s clear as day now. It’s all very opportunistic.”

Ms Kordrostami with her dog in her Sydney home. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

The Ryde City councillor said she was taken aback when “caucasian 21-year-old kids are telling me about who Hamas and Hezbollah are” at the pro-Palestinian rallies and beyond.

“What they don’t understand is those groups are proxies for the (Iranian) regime,” she said.

“They of course ask me ‘OK then, how would you do it differently with a genocide going on?’ And it’s pretty simple. You condemn the perpetrators, you name the regimes exploiting the genocide to whitewash the protests and you’d have independent protests that specifically say they don’t align themselves with authoritarian groups.”

Ms Kordrostami said flags and slogans associated with the Iranian regime should be banned from the rallies, criticising the Greens and protesters for being “so hard core when it comes to the Israeli flag” and yet “so nonchalant about established terrorist groups to have their flags out in public”.

“For a party (like the Greens) that talks so much about in­clusivity, I ask them the question: whose voices are being centred? Who’s pain right now is politically inconvenient?” she said.

“I’ll be forever grateful for what they’ve done for the Women, Life and Freedom movement. But let’s be clear, they have also benefited from me being in the party.

“My story is perfect in what you want in political candidate. A refugee with both parents as nurses, who founded an archi­tecture firm focused on neurodiversity. They picked me out and made the most out of that when they needed to.

“Now they want to silence me and make me seem like I’m a (questionable) source.”

It comes as Greens sources question the direction of the party, which increasingly focused on Palestine in the last term rather than the “bread and butter” issues it was founded on, such as environmentalism.

Despite her concerns and in the face of ongoing calls from the Greens for her to now quit the Ryde City Council, Ms Kordro­stami said she wanted to be on “amicable terms” with the minor party and focus on opening up the narrative beyond the current binary nature of being either for or against the genocide, and the idea that those raising issue with the Iranian regime were somehow ­Zionists.

“It seems we either have to sit down and be comfortable conversing with people who support war and use this term ‘collateral damage’ to justify it, or sit with these people who align themselves with oppressive regimes and labelling that as an act of liberation,” she said.

“We are stuck between two extremes and we need a third option. The fact is, I stand for everyday Palestinians and Israeli Jews who are against dictatorship, against extremism.”