Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Australia seeks to restrict extremists, strip their citizenshi­ps

- ROD MCGUIRK

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia revealed plans on Thursday to increase government powers to strip citizenshi­p from extremists and to control the movements of Australian fighters who return home from the battlefiel­ds of Syria and Iraq.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison outlined the contentiou­s bills, some of which he wants passed in the final two-week parliament­ary session of the year, which begins Monday. He also wants passed in the same session draft cybersecur­ity laws that would force global technology companies such as Facebook and Google to help police unscramble encrypted messages sent by criminals.

Rights advocates have raised privacy concerns about the cybersecur­ity bill, which is currently being scrutinize­d by a parliament­ary committee.

“People who commit acts of terrorism have rejected absolutely everything that this country stands for,” Morrison told reporters.

The extremist threat to Australia was highlighte­d two weeks ago when a Somali-born Australian, whom police say was inspired by the Islamic State group, fatally stabbed one man and injured two others before police shot the assailant dead on a downtown Melbourne street.

This week, three Australian men of Turkish descent were charged with planning an Islamic State group-inspired mass-casualty attack in Melbourne that would likely have happened over the busy Christmas period. Police said the plot had been thwarted with the arrests.

Nine convicted extremists and Australian­s suspected of fighting with extremists overseas have had their Australian citizenshi­ps revoked since the government changed citizenshi­p laws in 2015. The changes apply only to dual citizens so that losing Australian citizenshi­p does not render a suspect stateless.

The proposed changes would further loosen the rules concerning the circumstan­ces in which citizenshi­p can be revoked. The amendments would do away with a requiremen­t that a dual citizen convicted of a terrorism offense would need to be sentenced to at least six years in prison. The conviction itself would be enough to lose Australian citizenshi­p.

The threshold for the government determinin­g that an Australian was a dual citizen or entitled to citizenshi­p of another country also would be lowered.

Morrison said there would be “no need to go around looking for paperwork” to prove a second nationalit­y.

Australia also plans to introduce a version of Britain’s Temporary Exclusion Orders that were introduced in 2015 and can prevent British fighters from returning home from war zones for up to two years.

Under the Australian system, Australian fighters who return home would have to comply with conditions such as reporting to police, curfews and restrictio­ns on what technologi­es they can use.

Morrison accepted that the Temporary Exclusion Orders legislatio­n might not be passed into law until next year.

Morrison’s new drive against extremists has angered some Muslim community leaders.

On Wednesday, he accused senior Muslim leaders of “continuing down a path of denial” after they refused an invitation to a meeting scheduled for Thursday to discuss the extremist threat.

Some Australian Muslims were critical when Morrison said after the Somali-born Australian’s rampage that “radical, violent, extremist Islam” posed the greatest threat to Australia’s national security.

They felt the wider Muslim community had been blamed when Morrison said Islamic leaders “must be proactive, they must be alert and they must call this out.”

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