Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government would not assist Australian families of suspected Islamic State (IS) militants return home from a Syrian camp.
“We have a very firm view that we won’t be providing assistance or repatriation,” he told ABC News. He said prosecutions remained possible if they return.
"And so as my mother would say, you make your bed, you lie in it. It’s unfortunate that children are impacted by this as well. But we are not providing any support. And if anyone does manage to find their way back to Australia, then they’ll face the full force of the law, if any laws have been broken,” he added in Melbourne.
Thirty-four Australians released on Monday from a camp in northern Syria were returned to the detention centre due to “technical reasons,” two sources said.
"It's purely a procedural issue to be resolved today," a Syrian official said.
Hukmiya Mohamed, a co-director of Roj camp, told Reuters that they were put on small buses for Damascus ahead of their departure from the country with a military escort.
The group, referred to locally as “IS brides” though it includes children, is expected to travel to Damascus before eventually returning to Australia.
Their return prompted objections from ruling and opposition lawmakers.
Roj camp holds more than 2,000 people from 40 different nationalities, the majority of them women and children.
Thousands of people believed to be linked to Islamic State militants have been held at Roj and a second camp, al-Hol, since the jihadist group was driven from its final territorial foothold in Syria in 2019.
A spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Australia’s security agencies were monitoring developments closely.
“People in this cohort need to know that if they have committed a crime and if they return to Australia, they will be met with the full force of the law,” the spokesperson said.
IS is listed as a terror organisation in Australia, with membership punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Authorities can also strip dual nationals of citizenship.
The issue has become politically charged amid rising support for the right-wing, anti-immigration One Nation party led by Pauline Hanson. On Sky News, Hanson said, “They hate Westerners, and that’s what it’s all about. You say there’s great Muslims out there, well, I’m sorry, how can you tell me there are good Muslims?” Members of her party criticised the remarks.
A poll this week put One Nation’s support at a record 26%, above the combined backing for the centre-right coalition now in opposition.
The United States has urged Australia to repatriate women and children from the Roj and al-Hol camps, warning that leaving them there “compounds risk to all of us”, the Guardian reported last December.
U.S. officials offered to move Australians out if they were issued travel documents, with Adm Brad Cooper saying the camps had become “incubators for radicalisation”.
Human Rights Watch described conditions in the camps as “inhuman, degrading, and life-threatening”, including disease outbreaks, frostbite, fires and limited heating fuel. Notes tendered to Senate estimates last December said the sites were increasingly militarised and that children had been warned they could be shot if they crossed the fences, prompting calls for supervised repatriation.
Liberal Party senator Sarah Henderson said Australians with sympathies towards IS should not be allowed to re-enter.
“If these are people who subscribed to ISIS ideology, who subscribe to this extremist ideology, then they should not be returning to Australia,” she told ABC.
Under both Australian law and international obligations, citizens retain the right to reenter the country.
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A man accused of carrying out Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly three decades appeared briefly in a Sydney court on Monday (16 February), facing terrorism and murder charges over the 14 December attack on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead.
Australia will spend A$3.9bn to build a new shipyard for AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced, marking a major step in the trilateral defence pact with the U.S. and Britain.
Australia’s move to ban social media access for children under 16 has intensified a global debate, as governments around the world weigh tougher rules amid growing concerns over mental health, safety and screen addiction.
Portugal's parliament approved a bill on Thursday (12 February), on its first reading, requiring explicit parental consent for children aged 13 to 16-years old to access social media, in one of the first concrete legislative moves in Europe to impose such restrictions.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani said the United States could evaluate its own interests separately from those of Israel in ongoing negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday (15 February) called it “troubling” a report by five European allies blaming Russia for killing late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny using a toxin from poison dart frogs.
Cuba’s fuel crisis has turned into a waste crisis, with rubbish piling up on most street corners in Havana as many collection trucks lack enough petrol to operate.
Norway is holding a commanding lead in the medal standings with 12 golds and a total of 26, with Italy having an historic performance on home soil on the ninth day of the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics on Sunday (15 February).
Iran is pursuing a nuclear agreement with the U.S. that delivers economic benefits for both sides, an Iranian diplomat was reported as saying on Sunday (15 February), days before a second round of talks between Tehran and Washington.
Start your day informed with AnewZ Morning Brief: here are the top news stories for the 17th of February, covering the latest developments you need to know.
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Representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the United States are set to meet in Geneva for a third round of trilateral negotiations aimed at ending the nearly four-year war, even as both sides intensify military pressure on the ground.
Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced on 16 February that the Honourable Janice Charette has been appointed as the next Chief Trade Negotiator to the United States. She's been tasked with overseeing the upcoming review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
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