The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Livia Albeck-Ripka, a reporter with the Australia bureau.
Early last week, I took a road trip from Melbourne to Canberra. In many ways, it was a normal Australian road trip: an eclectic playlist, dead kangaroos on the road, and, of course, a stop at The Dog on the Tuckerbox.
But, it also wasn’t.
I was driving with Kamalle Dabboussy, whose 28-year-old daughter, Mariam Dabboussy, has been languishing for months in a camp for the families of ISIS fighters in Syria, together with her three children.
Mr. Dabboussy was making his way to Parliament House to lobby to get his daughter, and the more than 65 other women and children from Australia who are stuck there, brought home.
“If there is a will, there will be a way,” Mr. Dabboussy told reporters gathered in the courtyard of Parliament House on Tuesday last week. He pleaded to lawmakers: “Make them safe.”
On Monday and Tuesday this week, we aired Part I and Part II of Mr. Dabboussy’s story on “The Daily,” and since then, many have asked for more details on the stories of these women and children, as well as the complexities involved in repatriating them.
Here are answers to some of those questions:
How did the women end up there? Is it true they were all forced or tricked?
While the details of many of the women’s stories are unknown, some have come forward to explain themselves, including Mariam Dabboussy. She says that in late 2015, she was forced by gunpoint over the Turkish border with Syria, after traveling there in what her husband claimed was an attempt to extract a relative who was trying to escape the Islamic State.
Other women entered ISIS territory as teenagers, and are now adults with multiple children themselves — their relatives cite this as evidence that they were forced, and are not culpable. A lack of evidence as to what the women did under the ISIS regime can make it difficult to verify some of their claims.
Why won’t the Australian government bring them home?
The Australian government cites multiple reasons for not repatriating the women. It has maintained that it would not put other lives in harm’s way to extract them from the Al-Hol camp, and following the pullout of U.S. troops from the region, these dangers have only escalated. Even if the current cease-fire holds, the Australian government has said it is still far too risky to consider getting them out.
Second, ministers have said they have evidence that some of these women are radicalized, and could pose a threat.
Third, they argue that the women are simply suffering the consequences of their own decisions, and while that is unfortunate, it is not the government’s responsibility to extract them.
Legally, what does the Australian government owe these people? Doesn’t it have to bring them back?
The lawyers acting on behalf of the women argue that yes, Australia has a constitutional duty to repatriate citizens and apply due process. These legal obligations, they say, include a duty to investigate crimes of an international nature, and to protect Australian citizens who are detained overseas.
United Nations Security Council resolutions mandate that countries take action to have their citizens who joined the Islamic State brought before the law.
Policy experts also say that the state has a duty to take the children of those mothers who are radicalized into state custody. And others argue that the government has a moral obligation to extract children who had no say in their parents’ journey to Islamic State territory.
Are the children actually Australian?
While many of the children in Al-Hol were born in Syria, they can be conferred citizenship by descent if one or both of their parents are Australian. In order to establish their parentage, however, the Australian government would need to conduct DNA testing. Peter Dutton, the home affairs minister, has repeatedly brought up this process as a hurdle to repatriating the women and children.
So, what’s going to happen to them?
At the moment, the fate of the women and children is unclear. Mr. Dutton has staunchly maintained his position that they will not be removed from the camp or repatriated, but other lawmakers have shown slightly more flexibility. On Tuesday, Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, indicated there may be some chance of repatriation should the women manage to get themselves to a border. Politicians from the opposition Labor Party, as well as independent M.P.s, have also shown empathy toward their plight.
The relatives of the women are becoming increasingly concerned as the region further destabilizes, and as winter approaches, which humanitarian organizations say is likely to cause further sickness, and possibly even death, among those remaining in the Al-Hol camp.
Australia and New Zealand
A Chapter Is Closing at Uluru. But There’s More to This Australian Story. While banning climbing at the iconic rock is a once-unthinkable victory for an Aboriginal people, they still face material hardship and a measure of resistance.
Desperate Pleas to Free Women and Children From ISIS Camps in Syria. The violence that has followed an American pullback has intensified questions about what duty nations like Australia have to citizens detained abroad, even those affiliated with a terrorist group.
Australian Media Redact Their Front Pages to Protest Secrecy Laws. Print, online and on-air news outlets joined together in a concerted campaign to pressure the Australian government to soften its restrictive secrecy laws.
Peter Jackson Has a Lot of Power in New Zealand. Some Say Too Much. The filmmaker’s intervention in a mayoral race, part of an effort to block a housing plan, was unheard-of in a country where money and fame are usually wielded lightly.
‘Jojo Rabbit’ Review: The Third Reich Wasn’t All Fun and Games. The New Zealand director Taika Waititi’s new film mixes farce, fantasy and drama in a Nazi-era coming-of-age story.
Around The Times
The Illustrated Guide to Brexit. What in the world is going on in London? We sent a cartoonist to find out.
Google Claims a Quantum Breakthrough That Could Change Computing. Scientists at a company lab said they had taken a big step toward creating a machine that would make today’s supercomputers look like toys. And here’s an ultra-quick explainer of what quantum computing is.
One Family Built Forever 21, and Fueled Its Collapse. The retailer’s bankruptcy filing, and interviews with former employees, give a rare glimpse into a family-controlled, intensely secretive operation.
Flea Had a Wild Life. Then He Joined Red Hot Chili Peppers. In a new memoir, the bassist describes his Australian beginnings (“Odds are I might be sitting in Australia, drinking a Fosters, working at an oil plant or something”) and how he landed in a storied rock band.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/world/australia/syria-isis-camps.html
2019-10-25 01:17:00Z
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