ECAJ joins citizenship debate
THE Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has thrown its broad support behind the federal government’s proposals to revoke citizenship from Australians involved with terrorist groups, but has urged caution.
THE Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has thrown its broad support behind the federal government’s proposals to revoke citizenship from Australians involved with terrorist groups, but has urged caution.
In its submission to the government’s citizenship consultation process, which Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton announced in May, the Jewish roof body described stripping an individual of citizenship as “an extreme step”.
However, circumstances justifying the removal of an Australian’s citizenship should include “terrorist offences or grave international crimes (genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity) in Australia or on foreign soil”, the ECAJ stated.
An individual who has “repudiated his or her allegiance to Australia” by behaving “in a manner that is contrary to Australia’s national security interests, or caused or threatened physical harm to other Australians” should also have their citizenship stripped from them, according to the ECAJ submission.
“Even in those circumstances, we believe that revocation of citizenship should apply only to persons who … have another citizenship to fall back on,” the submission added.
Noting Dutton’s June 24 introduction of draft legislation into Parliament which would revoke the Australian citizenship of dual nationals serving in terrorist groups, the ECAJ voiced its support. “In our view, it is the most straightforward of the legislative changes proposed by the government.”
However, the roof body cautioned that the legislation needs to be flexible enough to make exceptions. “There is an assumption that persons convicted of any of these offences have necessarily severed their bond and repudiated their allegiance to Australia. In many, perhaps most, cases such an assumption will be justified, but not in all cases,” the submission stated.
The ECAJ also urged the government to focus strongly on education as a tool to counter radicalisation of young Australians, and proposed an educational video explaining Australian communal principles and values, as well as options for resolving family and workplace conflicts.
ECAJ executive director Peter Wertheim told The AJN, “The Australian Jewish community has an obvious interest in supporting measures that will affirm and strengthen Australia’s commitment to liberal democratic values, and emphasise the responsibility of all citizens to respect those values.
“Integrating these ideas into the national education curriculum would be a starting point in counteracting the growing influence of violent, extremist ideologies among younger Australians, whose thinking is often shaped by the superficiality and ignorance of history that pervades social media,” he said.
PETER KOHN
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