Appeals like this one are appearing in Australian papers by the dozen in recent days & weeks.
Bleeding hearts propaganda to allow ISIL operatives to return here where they don’t belong. Why are we supposed to be sympathetic to these monsters who went to establish the caliphate and murdered like zombies?
Al Banause’s Labor Government is under pressure from Greens and activists to allow men and women who left Australia to join ISIS overseas to return home.
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As crazy as giving a return ticket to people who signed up to join an organisation as barbaric and murderous as ISIS might sound the risk of it happening is very real.
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Let’s face it, there are some in the Labor and Green parties who would give these people Australian of the year awards if they could.
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Terrorists and traitors have no right to return to Australia and law-abiding Australians should not have their peace and safety put in danger.
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Whether you are a man or a woman, if you sign up to help a group like ISIS you must be forced to face the consequences.
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Claiming “I didn’t do anything wrong” just doesn’t cut it.
A 17-year-old Australian boy detained for three years without charge in a men’s prison in Syria is believed to have been killed after Islamic State attacked the jail trying to free their fighters.
Not true:
That article is from January 2022. Don’t fall for the BS propaganda.
Next:
this is not an “Aussie mum”. This is a broodsow for the global jihad. She doesn’t deserve any sympathy:
And another one:
Leftist law professor says Australian law does not require the government to admit the ISIS warriors back to Australia. Being a woke leftoid, of course, he pisses & moans about it.
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Australian law does not require we bring Syria families home
– The Australian
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Great. Keep them out. Why Murdoch’s press continues to campaign for them remains a mystery.
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Reality check:
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Wear black hijab, or we will kill you infidel!
That’s the kind of cute jihadi kids our bleeding heart politicians would like to bring home to CentreLink – and a suburb near you.
Daesh children attack Al Arabiya reporter Rola Al-Khatib
- Al-Hadath and Al-Arabiya reporter pelted with stones and called ‘infidel’ in Al-Hawl camp
- Camp, which houses Daesh wives and children, increasingly seen as extremist incubator
RIYADH: Children at a refugee camp in Syria housing Daesh families threatened to kill a television journalist for being an “infidel.”
Australian law does not require we bring Syria families home
Australian law does not require the Albanese government to bring home our citizens living in squalid conditions in northeast Syria. Rather than safeguarding their rights, our legal system arms our government with extraordinary powers to prevent these people from returning. The only source of an obligation to bring our women and children home lies in international law. However, international rules are not enforceable in Australia and have proved to be of little assistance.
The rights that may be thought to attach to Australian citizenship have limited protection under our legal system and are often non-existent. The Constitution does not mention Australian citizenship and other laws are also silent, thereby making us exceptional. Unlike every other democratic nation, we have not protected the rights of citizens in an instrument like a bill of rights or human rights act.
Australian governments instead have been granted remarkable powers to override basic citizenship rights. As we have seen during the pandemic, the federal government is more than able to prevent citizens from returning home. In the case of the India travel ban imposed last year, the government even threatened citizens with five years’ jail should they return from that country. The courts rejected an attempt to strike this down.
Special, and even more extreme, powers apply when national security is at stake. Citizens aged 14 or older can be prevented from entering Australia for two years under a temporary exclusion order. This can be imposed by a minister on broad grounds including that the person has been assessed by ASIO as “directly or indirectly a risk to security” for reasons related to politically motivated violence.
Australian law also confers the power to revoke citizenship from Australians who are dual nationals.
This has been applied to prevent Australians connected to the Syrian conflict from returning.
However, the High Court struck down a key element of this regime last month, thereby limiting the power of the government to take further action. Stripping citizenship now will be an option only where a person has been convicted and imprisoned for at least three years for foreign interference, terrorism and other like offences.
International law provides a different answer. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified for Australia by the Coalition Fraser government in 1980 says: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” This is bolstered by the obligation that Australia protect people from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Ten UN special rapporteurs have found the plight of Australians stuck in Syria is so poor as to meet this threshold. They say repatriation is “the only legal and humane response” to the “sheer obliteration” of the rights of these Australians.
Australia also has legal obligations to children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are required to give children special protection and to act with the overriding objective that “the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”.
This means Australia must not condemn children because of the actions of their parents and must take steps more broadly to safeguard the health and safety of Australian children. Our obligations under this convention stand in stark contrast to our treatment of children stranded in Syria.
These duties provide a strong legal case under international law for why Australia must bring it citizens home from Syria. The UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, has gone so far as to say Australia is under “an unequivocal international obligation to bring their nationals home, including their children”.
This, though, has not happened.
One reason for this is that our citizens cannot access their right to re-entry as they need government assistance. Another difficulty is that obligations under international law are not enforceable in our courts. There may be no effective remedy when our government breaches the rights of Australian citizens under international law.
The failure of governments to return our citizens stranded in such dire conditions in Syria is consistent with Australian law.
This reflects the fact our legal system does little to protect the rights of citizens and instead arms our governments with extraordinary powers to prevent citizens from exercising basic entitlements such as returning home.
Governments even may take the extra, extraordinary step of stripping citizenship from some nationals.
On the other hand, Australia’s failure to abide by our international legal commitments to citizens in Syria is becoming increasingly untenable. We compare unfavourably with other nations by standing in clear breach of our international commitments.
Australian governments assumed these obligations voluntarily and we must abide by them.
We expect this of other countries and also must do ourselves to protect our people as required under the international legal order.
George Williams is a deputy vicechancellor and professor of law at the University of NSW.
The rights that may be thought to attach to Australian citizenship have limited protection under our legal system and are often non-existent. The Constitution does not mention Australian citizenship and other laws are also silent, thereby making us exceptional. Unlike every other democratic nation, we have not protected the rights of citizens in an instrument like a bill of rights or human rights act.
Australian governments instead have been granted remarkable powers to override basic citizenship rights. As we have seen during the pandemic, the federal government is more than able to prevent citizens from returning home. In the case of the India travel ban imposed last year, the government even threatened citizens with five years’ jail should they return from that country. The courts rejected an attempt to strike this down.
Special, and even more extreme, powers apply when national security is at stake. Citizens aged 14 or older can be prevented from entering Australia for two years under a temporary exclusion order. This can be imposed by a minister on broad grounds including that the person has been assessed by ASIO as “directly or indirectly a risk to security” for reasons related to politically motivated violence.
Australian law also confers the power to revoke citizenship from Australians who are dual nationals.
This has been applied to prevent Australians connected to the Syrian conflict from returning.
However, the High Court struck down a key element of this regime last month, thereby limiting the power of the government to take further action. Stripping citizenship now will be an option only where a person has been convicted and imprisoned for at least three years for foreign interference, terrorism and other like offences.
International law provides a different answer. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified for Australia by the Coalition Fraser government in 1980 says: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” This is bolstered by the obligation that Australia protect people from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Ten UN special rapporteurs have found the plight of Australians stuck in Syria is so poor as to meet this threshold. They say repatriation is “the only legal and humane response” to the “sheer obliteration” of the rights of these Australians.
Australia also has legal obligations to children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are required to give children special protection and to act with the overriding objective that “the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”.
This means Australia must not condemn children because of the actions of their parents and must take steps more broadly to safeguard the health and safety of Australian children. Our obligations under this convention stand in stark contrast to our treatment of children stranded in Syria.
These duties provide a strong legal case under international law for why Australia must bring it citizens home from Syria. The UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, has gone so far as to say Australia is under “an unequivocal international obligation to bring their nationals home, including their children”.
This, though, has not happened.
One reason for this is that our citizens cannot access their right to re-entry as they need government assistance. Another difficulty is that obligations under international law are not enforceable in our courts. There may be no effective remedy when our government breaches the rights of Australian citizens under international law.
The failure of governments to return our citizens stranded in such dire conditions in Syria is consistent with Australian law.
This reflects the fact our legal system does little to protect the rights of citizens and instead arms our governments with extraordinary powers to prevent citizens from exercising basic entitlements such as returning home.
Governments even may take the extra, extraordinary step of stripping citizenship from some nationals.
On the other hand, Australia’s failure to abide by our international legal commitments to citizens in Syria is becoming increasingly untenable. We compare unfavourably with other nations by standing in clear breach of our international commitments.
Australian governments assumed these obligations voluntarily and we must abide by them.
We expect this of other countries and also must do ourselves to protect our people as required under the international legal order.
George Williams is a deputy vicechancellor and professor of law at the University of NSW.