Sydney meeting over ISIS wives underway
Shafaq News/ Three western Sydney mayors are meeting with Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to voice their opposition to a group of wives and children of Islamic State fighters living in their local government areas.
As she headed into Fairfield City Council chambers on Friday, Ms O’Neil said she was happy to be meeting the mayors. She’s due to hold a press conference afterwards.
Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun, Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone and Campbelltown Mayor George Greiss are expected to receive a security briefing from Ms O’Neil on the returnees.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, whose federal electorate of McMahon covers some of the mayors’ local government areas, accompanied Ms O’Neil to the meeting.
The federal government last month repatriated four Australian women and 13 children stranded in Syria’s al-Roj refugee camp since the defeat of ISIS back to Australia.
They were settled close to family in western Sydney.
The talks on Friday come after the mayors told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese there were community concerns about the returnees.
Their resettlement has raised concerns that refugee communities in the area, such as Yazidis and Assyrians who were targeted by ISIS, could be re-traumatised.
Cr Mannoun said many recently arrived refugees from Iraq and Syria had fled the ISIS militia.
“You would not put a victim of a crime next to the perpetrator or the person who is an accessory to the perpetrator,” Cr Mannoun told AAP.
Cr Carbone said the federal government had failed to think through the resettlement.
“It’s like putting Hitler’s wife in a Jewish town, it’s really insensitive and really poor,” he told Sky News on Friday.
Opposition deputy leader Sussan Ley urged Ms O’Neil to “please listen” to the people of western Sydney, saying they had been disrespected.
But Labor minister Jason Clare defended the decision, saying the former coalition government had also repatriated people from Syria to his Blaxland electorate, also in Sydney’s west.
Australia last repatriated citizens from a Syrian camp in 2019 under Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National government.
“(Former home affairs minister) Peter Dutton didn’t come to Bankstown, he didn’t tell me anything about it and left my community totally in the dark,” Mr Clare told Nine’s Today show on Friday.
Earlier this week, Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw confirmed investigations were underway into whether the returned wives had broken laws on travelling to war zones, including to Syria.
The women had co-operated with police, he said.
ISIS was ousted in 2019 from the last of the territory it held across Syria and Iraq. At its peak in 2014, the group controlled large swathes of both countries.
The violent movement attracted thousands of foreign fighters, including Australian citizens, around 50 of whom were killed in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
Source: michaelwest.com.au
