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The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is launching a new grassroots education campaign to try to boost awareness of foreign interference in multicultural communities, as fears grow many potential crimes are going unreported.
The new initiative comes in the wake of stark public warnings from both Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil and ASIO boss Mike Burgess that several countries are trying to meddle in Australian politics and intimidate their political opponents in diaspora communities in Australia.
AFP Special Investigations Commander Stephen Nutt said the organisation would use its network of liaison officers to distribute foreign interference fact sheets — which will be printed in 30 different languages — to communities vulnerable to coercion and intimidation.
The fact sheets will lay out "what foreign interference is, how it manifests and where victims can seek assistance", and will urge people who believe they have been targeted to ring the national security hotline.
Commander Nutt said foreign interference represented a "serious threat to Australian communities, sovereignty and security".
"Threats of foreign interference are not constrained to one sector of the Australian community nor perpetrated by a single nation-state," he said.
"Foreign state actors that undertake hostile activity against other countries are creating and pursuing opportunities to interfere with Australians — from decision-makers at all levels of government, across a range of sectors, and our communities."
AFP to take 'country-neutral' approach
The home affairs minister used a speech earlier this month to publicly name Iran as one of the countries responsible for foreign interference, revealing intelligence agencies recently disrupted a plot targeting an Iranian Australian protesting against the death of a woman in Tehran.
Several other activists opposed to the regime have also spoken to the media about how they have been tracked and intimidated by people connected to the Iranian government.
However, the AFP is taking a careful "country-neutral" approach in this campaign.
It will lay out the broad principles of what does and does not constitute foreign interference and give stripped-back examples of illegal behaviour without mentioning individual cases or countries.
The AFP campaign will also stress that foreign interference has to be "linked to a foreign government or its proxy".
People loyal to foreign governments who independently attack or threaten political opponents may be committing other crimes, but they are not guilty of foreign interference offences.
Commander Nutt said the main thing the APF wanted to do was make sure people knew that foreign interference was a crime in Australia and they should report it to authorities.
"While not all reports of foreign interference in the community will generate an obvious AFP response, each report helps to build a picture of emerging issues," he said.