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Like it or not, the ISIS brides are coming home · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday February nineteen, twenty twenty six. The daughter of
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  Speaker 1: one of Iran's most senior military leaders who's been sanctioned
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  Speaker 1: by Australia and the United Nations, has lived in Australia
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  Speaker 1: for years, despite multiple warnings to the Albanese government, the
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  Speaker 1: Australians revealing today Haneia Safavi, the daughter of Major General
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  Speaker 1: Yaya Rahim Safavi, is a permanent resident and has obtained
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  Speaker 1: psychology qualifications. That's an exclusive life now at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot a U one Nation leader Pauline Hanson
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  Speaker 1: has sought to defend her claim that there are no
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  Speaker 1: good Muslims amid a firestorm of political outrage, but she's
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  Speaker 1: not getting any help from her new best friend. Barnaby Joyce,
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  Speaker 1: the ex national MP who's Hanson's latest recruit, was asked
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  Speaker 1: whether he agreed with his party leader. Joyce simply said,
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  Speaker 1: what are you asking me for? It's an old issue
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  Speaker 1: with a very new twist. A group of thirty four
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  Speaker 1: Australian women and children, known colloquially as the Isis Brides,
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  Speaker 1: are on the long journey home from the grim Syrian
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  Speaker 1: refugee camp Alroge, where they washed up with the debris
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  Speaker 1: of a caliphate that never came to be. Australia has
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  Speaker 1: brought Isis families home before, but now the heatover immigration,
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  Speaker 1: Islamic radicalism and anti Semitism is so great that Anthony
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  Speaker 1: Albanesi's government says it won't help at all. But is
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  Speaker 1: that really true today? How domestic politics will shape the
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  Speaker 1: fate of these families.
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  Speaker 2: My mother would have said, if you make your bed, you.
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  Speaker 3: Lie in it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, they shouldn't come here.
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  Speaker 3: We don't need them.
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  Speaker 1: These people, well, these women went over supported their men
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  Speaker 1: to fight against our varuas our laws.
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  Speaker 4: Australians expect our borders and communities to be protected from
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  Speaker 4: individuals connected to extremist violence.
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  Speaker 2: We won't be providing assistance or repatriation. Of course, Australian
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  Speaker 2: law applies and there are obligations that Australian officials have,
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  Speaker 2: but we want to make it clear as well as
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  Speaker 2: we have to the people involved that if there are
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  Speaker 2: any breaches of the law, then they will face the
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  Speaker 2: full force of the Australian law.
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  Speaker 5: The person attempting to travel from Syria to Australia as
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  Speaker 5: part of an ISIS bride cohort, will be blocked from
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  Speaker 5: entering the country. The government has issued what is known
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  Speaker 5: as a temporary exclusion order and what that does is
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  Speaker 5: prevent this one individual from coming into Australia for a
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  Speaker 5: period of two years.
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  Speaker 1: Thirty four Australians desperate to get home and a government
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  Speaker 1: in by one nation and the opposition desperate to make
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  Speaker 1: it look as difficult as possible. We've been here before
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  Speaker 1: with the remnants of Sunni Muslim jihadist group Islamic State
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  Speaker 1: and its so called caliphate, the horrifyingly violent movement that
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  Speaker 1: pushed gay people off buildings and burned journalists alive in
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  Speaker 1: cages in northern Syria. There are former ISIS fighters in
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  Speaker 1: jails and their camp followers, wives and children in grim
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  Speaker 1: refugee centers. Governments around the world are wrestling with the
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  Speaker 1: same notion what to do with these lost citizens. Ben
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  Speaker 1: Packham is the Australian's Foreign Affairs and Defense correspondent. Then
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  Speaker 1: let's talk about the politics of this. For Anthony Albanesi,
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  Speaker 1: he said on Wednesday morning that some of these people
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  Speaker 1: would have the full force of the law applied to them.
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  Speaker 1: I found that interesting because up until now we've been
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  Speaker 1: talking about these people as essentially victims, people who were
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  Speaker 1: taken to the war zone as children, or at least
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  Speaker 1: as young women who went there maybe of their own volition,
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  Speaker 1: who were married to people who fought for a caliphate.
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  Speaker 1: You know, probably not good guys, I think we could
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  Speaker 1: safely say now he seems to be framing them as
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  Speaker 1: potential perpetrators or people who've done something wrong. What's your
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  Speaker 1: sense of what the government actually thinks about these people.
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  Speaker 4: The government is being very careful about the politics of this.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's useful to take a step back and
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  Speaker 4: look at the fact that both the Morrison government and
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  Speaker 4: the Albanese government have returned some of these Isis brides
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  Speaker 4: and some of the children back to Australia. In fact,
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  Speaker 4: the Morrison government repatriated some orphans. Early in the Albanesi
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  Speaker 4: government they repatriated some women and children. There was another
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  Speaker 4: group that came back last year. There's some thirty four
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  Speaker 4: trying to leave now. So the government's position is that
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  Speaker 4: it does not support the repatriations. But of course these
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  Speaker 4: women and their children are Australian citizens and like any
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  Speaker 4: other citizen, they have a right to come home. We
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  Speaker 4: do know that the women have been issued passports. So
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  Speaker 4: is that assistance, Well, I mean I think it is,
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  Speaker 4: but it's only the sort of assistance that any other
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  Speaker 4: Australian would expect. The Prime Minister says, will subject these
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  Speaker 4: people to the full force of the law.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, what does that mean?
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  Speaker 4: Going to a place controlled by terrorists as an offense
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  Speaker 4: and being a member of a terrorist organization is an offense.
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  Speaker 4: So arguably you know that could apply to some of
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  Speaker 4: them if they sort of knowingly went there. But there
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  Speaker 4: has only been one of these Isis Brides, charged over
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  Speaker 4: going to a place controlled by terrorist organization and she
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  Speaker 4: got off.
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  Speaker 3: She was not convicted, So there's not a whole lot.
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  Speaker 4: Of precedent there to suggest that any of these women
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  Speaker 4: would be victed. However, they will have to be properly
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  Speaker 4: assessed by the security agencies. It's likely some or all
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  Speaker 4: of them will be closely watched for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: How much is this this sort of symbolic response, Ben,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm interested in how it's shaped by the debate
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  Speaker 1: that we're having right now in Australian politics about immigration.
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  Speaker 1: So last year when The Australian reported that a cohort
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  Speaker 1: of Isis families were going to come home. Initially, the
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  Speaker 1: federal government completely denied it said that the story was wrong,
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  Speaker 1: gool to.
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  Speaker 3: The promnistant those reports are not accurate.
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  Speaker 1: And then they were embarrassed when a senior New South
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  Speaker 1: Wales police officer got up in front of a parliamentary
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  Speaker 1: committee and said, yes, we're preparing for them to come back.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, implying very heavily that preparations were well underway.
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  Speaker 6: Obviously you said, well's government have a huge role, with
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  Speaker 6: justice and health and education and everyone else in the
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  Speaker 6: reintegration of these individuals back into New South World society,
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  Speaker 6: as we have done previously.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, since then Australia has been plunged into a
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  Speaker 1: very hot conversation about immigration. Do you think that's altering
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  Speaker 1: the way the government is talking about this at all?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely?
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  Speaker 4: I mean, immigration is one of the hot button issues
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  Speaker 4: out there in the community.
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  Speaker 3: Voters are heading over.
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  Speaker 4: To one nation because they like what that part is
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  Speaker 4: saying about immigration, So that is definitely the domestic context
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  Speaker 4: that is sort of playing into the government's response.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 4: While the PM is sounding quite hairy chested on this.
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  Speaker 4: There's actually probably a lot more sympathy within the government
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  Speaker 4: for the position of these women than they're actually publicly
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  Speaker 4: letting on. And we've reported in the past that there
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  Speaker 4: have been sort of some private conversations between senior members
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  Speaker 4: of the government and Save the Children, which has been
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  Speaker 4: a key advocate for these women and children over the
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  Speaker 4: years in calling for them to come home. There's a
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  Speaker 4: prominent Sydney doctor, Jamal Riffi, who is coordinating some of the.
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  Speaker 3: Efforts over in Syria on barth of the women.
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  Speaker 4: He is actually quite a close friend of the Home
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  Speaker 4: Affairs Minister Tony Burke. So it stretches credulity that the
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  Speaker 4: government doesn't know what's sort of going on here and
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  Speaker 4: is not offering at least some basic level of support.
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  Speaker 1: Advocates for the family have been saying for years now,
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  Speaker 1: Ben that if the government doesn't assist these families to
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  Speaker 1: come home, that there will be attempts to get them
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  Speaker 1: home by other means. Presumably that means they might try
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  Speaker 1: to engage people smuggler. We have seen other people do
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  Speaker 1: that from camps in the Middle East, not necessarily coming
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  Speaker 1: to Australia. I mean that's not an out common the
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  Speaker 1: government once though, is it?
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  Speaker 4: I know, and I mean I think the ideal situation
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  Speaker 4: would be a managed return of these women so that
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  Speaker 4: no one's surprised and everyone, all the security agencies can
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  Speaker 4: have the appropriate conversations. I mean, I think really that's
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  Speaker 4: what he's going to have happen. When these women do
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  Speaker 4: get out and do make their way to an Australian
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  Speaker 4: embassy somewhere, those conversations will be able to happen. And
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  Speaker 4: for political reasons at the moment, the government can't be
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  Speaker 4: seen to be repatriating them or offering too much help.
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  Speaker 4: But they're Australian citizens like you or I. Unless they
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  Speaker 4: are slap with a temporary exclusion order, they're coming back.
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  Speaker 1: There is an advocacy job the government could be doing here,
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  Speaker 1: isn't there. I mean, Anthony Alberinezi is a pretty good
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  Speaker 1: political communicator. He could stand up and say, look, these
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  Speaker 1: are all the reasons why we have decided we can't
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  Speaker 1: leave these people to rot. We can't have the Kurds
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  Speaker 1: in Northern Syria looking after them forever. It's not fair
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  Speaker 1: on them. We have an obligation here. Why do you
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  Speaker 1: think he's not doing that?
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  Speaker 4: Well, that would be a very sort of sophisticated argument
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  Speaker 4: on a subject that there's not a lot of sympathy
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  Speaker 4: and kind of willingness to kind of accept the nuance there.
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  Speaker 3: Look, everything you.
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  Speaker 4: Say is true in terms of those women, but you know,
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  Speaker 4: and a lot of them were taken there against their wishes.
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  Speaker 4: Children are completely innocent, particularly the ones that were born
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  Speaker 4: over there, and you know a lot of people in
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  Speaker 4: the countering extremism world believe that they should be brought
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  Speaker 4: home in an orderly way to be properly managed. But
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  Speaker 4: you know, that's a very difficult conversation to have when
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  Speaker 4: you have new Opposition leader Angus Taylor who's going out
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  Speaker 4: hard on this, you have handsome forces and others who
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  Speaker 4: would campaign on it, and it's quite a difficult and
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  Speaker 4: nuanced conversation that the government would have to have with Australians.
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  Speaker 4: And yeah, look it's not up for that at all
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  Speaker 4: given the political circumstances.
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  Speaker 1: Do you detect from the government then any sense that
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  Speaker 1: the conversation that we're having now in Australia about anti
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  Speaker 1: semitism and big protest on city streets is feeding into
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  Speaker 1: this that they're becoming extra cautious because of.
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  Speaker 3: All of that, I think that's the case.
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  Speaker 4: We're all, universally Australians were alarmed and shocked about what
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  Speaker 4: we saw at Bondai Beach in December, a terrible attack,
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  Speaker 4: and that plays out in the wider political debate, and
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  Speaker 4: so there are great concerns about Islamists, extremism and national security.
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  Speaker 4: You know, it's unarguable that these women have spent a
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  Speaker 4: lot of time with ISIS and you know, they certainly
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  Speaker 4: need to be closely assessed before they're allowed back into
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  Speaker 4: the community.
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  Speaker 1: Ben Packham is The Australian's Foreign Affairs and Defense correspondent.
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  Speaker 1: You can read all his reporting right now at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au