CANBERRA<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s centre-left government on Sunday rejected a local media report that said it was working to repatriate Australians in a Syrian camp holding families of suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants.<\/p>\n
The 34 women and children were released on Monday from the camp in northern Syria, but returned to the detention centre due to technical reasons.<\/p>\n
The group is expected to travel to Damascus before eventually returning to Australia, despite objections from ruling and opposition lawmakers.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke rejected claims made in a report in the Sunday Telegraph, asserting that official preparations were under way for the cohort\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that report, it makes a claim that we are conducting a repatriation. We are not,\u201d Burke told Australian Broadcasting Corp television.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt claims we have been meeting with the states for the purposes of a repatriation. We have not,\u201d Burke added.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who leads Australia\u2019s Labour Party, said this week his government would not help the group return to Australia.<\/p>\n
The return of relatives of suspected ISIS militants is a political issue in Australia, which has seen a surge in popularity of the right-wing, anti-immigration One Nation party led by Pauline Hanson.<\/p>\n
Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group, is listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia, with membership of the group punishable by up to 25 years in prison.<\/p>\n
Australia also has the power to strip dual nationals of citizenship if they are an Islamic State member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CANBERRA Australia\u2019s centre-left government on Sunday rejected a local media report that said it was working to repatriate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-497036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}