In Brief
- Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said one person had been given a temporary exclusion order (TEO).
- A TEO allows the minister to temporarily ban citizens by up to two years from re-entering the country.
The federal government has confirmed it has temporarily barred a woman with alleged links to the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) group from returning to Australia from a Syrian displacement camp. The move has been criticised by human rights advocates.
The government has been under pressure from the opposition to impose temporary exclusion orders on the group since it was revealed a group of 34 women and children had unsuccessfully tried to return to Australia from the al-Roj camp in northern Syria.
The group had been living in the camp in squalid conditions since 2019, when the IS group collapsed.
They had been seeking to return home, but the government insisted it would not help repatriate them.
A temporary exclusion order (TEO) allows the Home Affairs minister to temporarily ban citizens by up to two years from re-entering the country on national security grounds.
In a statement on Wednesday, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said one person had been given a TEO.
"I can confirm that one individual in this cohort has been issued a Temporary Exclusion Order, which was made on advice from security agencies," he said.
"At this stage security agencies have not provided advice that other members of the cohort meet the required legal thresholds for temporary exclusion orders."
The minister can make the order when they suspect "on reasonable grounds" that it would "prevent a terrorist act, support for a terrorist act, training with a terrorist organisation or support for a terrorist organisation".
Burke did not confirm the details of this order and whether it would apply for two years.
The revelation came hours after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese remained tight-lipped about whether the government was considering a TEO.
"We take national security advice, and we will do what we can to keep Australians safe within the law," he told reporters on Wednesday.
"These are people who chose to go overseas to align themselves with an ideology which is the caliphate, which is a brutal, reactionary ideology and that seeks to undermine and destroy our way of life," he said.
"So, we will be doing and are doing nothing to assist or to repatriate these people."
Opposition home affairs spokesperson Jonathon Duniam said the order raised "more questions than answers", arguing more than one person from the cohort had travelled to the same region to support a listed terrorist organisation.
"The Opposition has grave concerns that the Minister is not acting in the interests of our nation and its security, and is instead supporting these efforts to bring these ISIS Brides back to Australia, " he wrote in a statement.
Burke distanced himself from Dr Jamal Rifi, understood to be coordinating the cohort's return overseas, stating he did not know his whereabouts nor had he been in contact with Rifi.
'Right to return': Human rights advocates criticise move under international law
Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, says Australians have a right to "return to their own country".
"Temporary exclusion orders have the practical effect of invalidating someone's passport and could effectively render a person stateless during that period," she told SBS News.
Gavshon noted Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits arbitrary bans on people from returning to their own country.
This right to return is also set out in the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
"The Australian government has a duty to avoid statelessness under international law," she said.
"If the government is concerned about the conduct of any of its citizens, it should be conducting investigations and where appropriate, prosecuting people for any alleged offences rather than trying to implement short-term solutions that have no basis in human rights."
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