Australia passes Anti-Terrorism law to strip citizenship
Australia’s Federal Parliament has passed Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill, 2015 to strip citizenship of convicted persons on terrorism charges.
The new legislation allows government to strip dual nationals of their citizenship if they are convicted of terrorism offences.
Key provisions
- Those who are found to have fought for banned terrorist group overseas, their citizenship will be automatically terminated.
- The dual nationals would lose their citizenship if the person is convicted of a terrorism offence and sentenced to at least 6 years’ of imprisonment
- Those who are found engaged in terrorist acts such as providing or receiving training in for carrying a terrorist attack, recruit or finance terrorists (organisations) or terrorism.
- If any person is convicted of terrorism in the previous decade then the new law has retrospective measures to allow revoking of citizenship convicted terrorists.
Background
As per the Australian Government, the law was deemed necessary due to current terrorist threats around the world including in Australia from banned terrorist outfit Islamic state. There also has been increasingly concern about the flow terrorist recruits to Iraq and Syria to join IS extremist groups from Australia.
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Month: Current Affairs - December, 2015