Australia has cancelled the citizenship of five individuals due to their involvement with the ISIS terrorist group overseas.
The ISIS terrorist group “is opposed to Australia, its people and its democratic rights and privileges,” Dutton said in the statement. “Fundamentally, citizenship requires allegiance to this country.”
ISIS has been declared a terrorist organisation in Australia since May 2016.
These changes came into effect in 2015 and had already been applied to strip identified terrorist, Khaled Sharrouf of his citizenship. Sharrouf became well known after photos of his son holding a severed head of a Syrian soldier began circulating on the internet.“Cessation of Australian citizenship for dual nationals involved in terrorism is a key part of Australia’s response to international violent extremism and terrorism,” Dutton said.
“The Government is determined to deal with foreign terrorist fighters as far from our shores as possible to ensure that if they do return it is with forewarning and into the hands of authorities.”
Dutton told the radio station it is expected that more people could have their Australian citizenship cancelled but didn’t specify details.
“The determination of the Government is to try and keep Australia as safe as possible and we do that by keeping these people far from our shores so if we can deal with foreign fighters away from our shores we do that,” he told the radio station.
“If people are coming back here armed with all that knowledge it does provide a significant security risk to Australian citizens so we are very keen to neutralise that wherever we can.”