Australia will consider broadening its immigration laws to deport immigrants -- including permanent residents and naturalized citizens -- who hold extremist views, the attorney general said yesterday.
Under existing laws, the government can deny entry to extremists on character, as well as security grounds, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said.
"One of the aspects of the character tests that we have applied for entry to Australia has included people who may promote views that are broadly unacceptable to the Australian community," Ruddock told reporters in Sydney.
He said the government will now consider widening that law to cover immigrants already in the country, including permanent residents and naturalized citizens, to deport those who promote extremist views.
Ruddock's comments came after the federal police commissioner, Mick Keelty, confirmed this week that intelligence authorities are aware of about 60 Islamic extremists living in Australia, including a self-styled Islamic cleric who appeared on television calling Osama bin Laden a "great man."
The Australian-Algerian cleric, Abu Bakr, also said that it was acceptable under Islamic law for Australian Muslims to fight a holy war against coalition forces in Iraq.
Under existing laws, naturalized Australian citizens can only be removed from the country if they are found to have obtained their citizenship through fraud, Ruddock said.
Ruddock, however, acknowledged that it would be difficult to deport a naturalized citizen because those stripped of their Australian nationality would be left "stateless."
"The idea that you could remove people who were stateless is ... somewhat naive," Ruddock said. "Countries won't accept people back unless they are their citizens."
The issue will likely be on the agenda of a counterrorism meeting of state and federal leaders called by Prime Minister John Howard for next month to discuss tightening security in the country.
evacuation plan
In other related news, the newly elected leader of Australia's most populous state yesterday defended his decision to release details of Sydney's evacuation plan in the event of a terror attack.
New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma stood by the release of information, saying the plan had been developed in cooperation with emergency services personnel.
Iemma's "counter-terrorism evacuation plan," released Friday, revealed which parts of the city residents of Sydney would be marshalled to in the event of an attack.
It has been criticized as merely giving information to potential terrorists on where to detonate secondary bombs to cause even more injury and damage.
But Iemma said the sites were under constant surveillance by police.
"Quite clearly you need to provide information for office workers, for shoppers as to where they should go if there's an incident," he told reporters.
confusion and fear
"What we do know from attacks and from incidents is that they do cause confusion and fear and there is a risk of further injury as a result of fear and confusion," he said.
"This is designed to minimize that and it is about minimizing the risk," he added.
Security experts have criticized the plan, which will be administered by volunteers.
"Why would they release anything like that," counter-terrorism expert Tony Loughran said.
"It doesn't make sense to reveal these locations. In this type of situation, there is still the potential for another payload to go off. And, anyway, unless you are at the epicenter, you should stay inside," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Iemma became premier on Wednesday following the resignation of Bob Carr after more than 10 years in the job.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to