Isis: Australia to strip citizenship from children of extremists fighting for terrorist groups

The Australian government has introduced a Bill in Parliament that gives the government the power to take away Aussie citizenship from the children of extremists fighting overseas.

The controversial legislation - Allegiance to Australia Bill - was introduced in Parliament on Wednesday (24 June), Reuters reported.

Certain groups have objected to the automatic stripping of nationality based on government definitions of what constitutes terrorism and terrorist activity.

The government has said that its decisions would be open to a review by the courts, although this particular avenue of appeal is not stated explicitly in the bill, the news wire reported.

The law can be used retrospectively on people already in jail on terrorism offences and children of dual nationals can also be stripped of their citizenship, although they may claim Aussie citizenship through another "responsible" parent.

The mother-in-law of a man believed to have been killed in Iraq while fighting for Isis has pleaded for his wife and children to be allowed to return home.

Karen Nettleton, the mother of Khaled Sharrouf's wife, Tara, said her daughter had made the "mistake of a lifetime. Today she is a parent alone in a foreign and vicious land looking after a widowed 14 -year-old and four other young children."

Sharrouf and his best friend Mohamed Elomar made the headlines last year after they and Sharrouf's seven-year-old son were pictured holding the severed heads of Syrian soldiers.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the government had a "high degree of confidence" Elomar had been killed but was less sure about the fate of Sharrouf, following reports that they had both died in a missile strike last week.

Under the proposed bill, dual nationality holders like Sharrouf and Elomar would automatically lose their Australian citizenship on grounds of fighting for a terrorist organisation overseas.

Under the bill, a terrorist organisation is one determined as such by the government as one that is "opposed to Australia, or Australia's values, democratic beliefs, rights and liberties."