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Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong won’t confirm whether the Albanese government refused to receive a group of women and children linked to former ISIS fighters but warned they would face “the full force of the law” if they returned to Australia.
Nine children and four women were released from the Al-Roj detention centre in Syria last month and are reportedly attempting to return to Australia.
However, the Syrian government last week claimed in comments to the Associated Press that it had stopped the group from reaching the airport at Syria’s capital city Damascus because Australian authorities had “refused to receive them”.
Speaking to Sunrise on Monday, Senator Wong refused to confirm whether the Syrian government was correct.
“Well, I can’t speak for the Syrian government,” she said.
“I can only speak for the Australian government, and what I am saying is we are not acting to repatriate them.”
Senator Wong suggested the Syrian government may have been referring to Australia’s refusal to repatriate the group.
Pressed on whether the government had refused the group, she added: “We are not acting to repatriate them.”
The Albanese government has repeatedly denied assisting to repatriate the group, who were turned back by Syrian authorities during a previous attempt to reach Damascus in February.
However, Senator Wong admitted that as Australian citizens they “have a set of rights, including return home”.
A single person was issued with a temporary exclusion order by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke under advice from ASIO.
Mr Burke last week said he would not interfere and would leave it to Australian Federal Police to “make announcements or to choose not to make announcements” when asked about the potential arrest of the group on their return to Australia.
“There is no way I’ll interfere with anything operationally,” he said.
The women and children are understood to have received passports with the assistance of prominent western Sydney doctor Jamal Rifi.
The Coalition has accused the Albanese government of not being transparent about their dealings with the group and not exercising what it says is the full suite of laws available to exclude them entry.
Last week, opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said there “seems to be equivocation and a lack of certainty, a lack of clarity, when it comes to something so important as national security and protecting us from a risk that I believe, and many Australians believe, ISIS brides (would) pose to the Australian community”.
US officials have also sought to pressure countries to accept people linked to former fighters amid a thaw in relations with the new Syrian government.
The women and children have languished in detention, mostly under the auspice of the US-backed Kurdish militia, since the fall of ISIS’ contiguous so-called caliphate in 2019.
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