A control order is only useful where the police have sufficient intelligence about a person’s activity to apply for an order.
Karen Nettleton, whose daughter and grandchildren are currently in Syria, has a made a public plea for her family to be allowed to return to Australia.
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Whatever we think of the family of foreign fighter Khaled Sharrouf or their circumstances, they enjoy the right to return on the same footing as every other Australian citizen.
If their deaths fighting for Islamic State in Iraq are confirmed, Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar would be far from the first foreign fighters to be killed in the history of combat.
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Foreign fighters have always posed a dual challenge: how to stop them going and what to do if they return. History offers lessons on managing these problems, including that it’s hard to stop them leaving.
Australia has been reluctant to treat Islamic State as a sovereign entity under international law.
AAP/Dean Lewins
In its rush to deny overseas fighters their Australian citizenship, the government must ensure it doesn’t end up endorsing the very thing it wants to repudiate.
The Abbott government has announced a plan to strip dual nationals involved in terrorism of their Australian citizenship.
AAP/Lukas Coch
A number of countries – including Canada, France, the US and the UK – allow for the deprivation of citizenship on national security grounds. But the scope of ministerial discretion varies significantly.
New Zealand citizen Kadhem Chilab Abbas paid with his life by answering Iraq’s call to arms against Islamic State.
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The death of a New Zealand citizen who returned to Iraq has led some to query his status as a refugee. We need to be clear about what it means to be granted asylum and the rights of citizenship.
Tony Abbott’s proposed national security measures include significant changes to Australia’s citizenship regime.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The proposal to revoke the citizenship of dual citizens who fight for terrorist groups would materially expand upon the existing grounds for citizenship loss.
Tony Abbott’s proposed national security changes have the potential to exacerbate the underlying causes of violent extremism and further damage Australia’s social cohesion.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Australia’s response to terrorism must not be rooted in short-term political gains, but in a larger strategy that takes into account the problems leading to social disaffection.
Three Australian IS fighters may have been killed in the last month, including Mohammad Ali Baryalei.
AAP Image/YouTube
Estimates are that there are more than 60 Australian citizens in the ranks of the Islamic State (IS) armies sweeping through Syria and Iraq. In a recent case, reported by the Sydney Morning Herald last…
In matters of ‘security’ social problems, the persistent undesirable condition has been that of the ‘boat people’.
AAP/Scott Fisher
In matters of national security, who is deviant and poses a threat to our safety depends on the claims made by those in positions of power and the sociopolitical climate. The news media are crucial in…
A military campaign against Islamic State forces will offer no long-term resolution to Iraq’s extremist problem.
YouTube/VICE News
To explain the disaster befalling Iraq, as well as the rise of Islamic State (IS), you have to go back a century – before modern Iraq even existed. That’s not to discount the shared culpability of Iraq’s…
Governments have generally invested much more in hard-edged military and policing responses than in smarter and more sustainable ‘soft power’ approaches to countering violent extremism.
EPA/Bagus Indahono
More than a decade of security-based transnational approaches to combating terrorist activity and propaganda have demonstrated that these alone are ineffective. Sometimes, security measures can actually…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott and US president Barack Obama meeting in Washington earlier this year.
EPA/Ron Sachs
Tony Abbott and US president Barack Obama discussed the Ebola crisis in a telephone conversation on Wednesday morning. But the Prime Minister’s Office declined to say whether there had been any presidential…
Sydney teenager Abdullah Elmir, who uses the alias Abu Khaled, speaking in an Islamic State video.
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New powers targeting foreign fighters and political “hate crimes” are set to be amended, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has confirmed in the hope of pushing the legislation through parliament next week. But…
Bronwyn Bishop had to drop her interim edict on people wearing face coverings during question time.
AAP/Inter-Parliamentary Union, Lucien Fortunati
Parliament’s presiding officers, Speaker Bronwyn Bishop and Senate President Stephen Parry were hung out to dry by Tony Abbott over their ill-judged plan that veiled women would be segregated behind glass…
The new laws would make it easier for authorities to prevent people fighting in foreign conflicts, as happened to this man arrested in December for allegedly attempting to travel to Syria.
AAP/Australian Federal Police
The Abbott government has today introduced the second tranche of its national security amendments – the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 – into the Senate. As its name…
The ultimate test of success of raids such as last week’s is whether those charged can be deradicalised so they do not present a threat after the justice system has dealt with them.
EPA/NSW Police
The dust is settling after the extensive police raids across Sydney and Brisbane last week. Authorities say this was the largest counter-terrorism operation in Australia’s history. Not only was it the…
If refused re-entry, foreign fighters such as Australian Mohamed Elomar are likely to become professional jihadists for life.
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Prime Minister Tony Abbott has spent recent weeks attempting to rally support for mooted anti-terror laws that would block the return of Australian jihadists fighting alongside Islamic State (IS) in Syria…
The coalition negotiated hard on emergency measures.
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After weeks of speculation, the UK government has played its hand, revealing the measures it is taking to confront what is apparently “the greatest and deepest terrorist threat” the UK has ever faced…
Australian jihadist Khaled Sharrouf spent time in prison for terrorist activities, but he clearly did not abandon his radical beliefs there.
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The government’s mooted legislation to tackle returning foreign fighters will undoubtedly make it easier to detect and prosecute those involved in terrorism overseas. This means many returned fighters…