Committee to scrutinise groups listed as terrorist organisations

THE Intelligence and Security Committee will question the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Department of Home Affairs in relation to six organisations proposed to be listed as terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (the Criminal Code) during a public hearing in Canberra tomorrow.

When an organisation is listed as a terrorist organisation, it becomes an offence to associate with it by becoming a member, recruiting on its behalf, participating in training with that organisation, or providing support to that organisation.

The government can list an organisation as a terrorist organisation if the Minister for Home Affairs is satisfied that it:

• is engaged in preparing, planning, assisting or fostering the doing of a terrorist act; or
• advocating the doing of a terrorist act.

The Minister has proposed the listing of one new organisation:

• Islamic State-Somalia, an Islamic State affiliated extremist group operating in northern Somalia with the purpose of advancing an Islamic Caliphate in the horn of Africa.

And the re-listing of five previously declared terrorist organisations:

• Abu Sayyaf Group, a separatist militant Islamist movement primarily operating out of the islands of Jolo and Basilan in the Sulu archipelago of the southern Philippines.
• al-Qa’ida, a Sunni Islamist extremist organisation which seeks to establish a trans-national Islamic Caliphate by removing, through violent means if necessary, governments in Muslim countries that it deems are ‘un-Islamic’.
• al-Qa’ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, an affiliate of al-Qa’ida which shares its anti-Western ideology and aims to remove ‘un-Islamic’ governments in Muslim countries in order to establish an Islamic Caliphate.
• Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist extremist group based in Syria with links to al-Qa’ida, originally established in 2011 to oppose the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
• Jemaah Islamiyah, a jihadist group, inspired by the same ideology as al-Qa’ida, which regards the Indonesian Government and other governments in the region to be illegitimate and aims to revive a pure form of Islam governed by the tenets of Sharia law.

Under section 102.1A of the Criminal Code, the Committee may review listings of terrorist organisations and report its findings to each house of the Parliament within the 15 sitting day disallowance period.

Members of the public are welcome to attend the public hearing and make submissions to this review. Submissions should be provided no later than 5pm Friday, 2 August 2019.

Public hearing details: 

Date: Wednesday 31 July, 2019
Time: 12pm – 12.30pm 
Location: Committee Room 1R4, Parliament House, Canberra

Further information on the inquiry can be obtained from the Committee’s website.

ends