Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has confirmed the formal process to ban the pan-Islamic organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir, has begun, following advice from the domestic spy agency ASIO.
Burke said this would mark the first potential banning of an organisation that falls short of a formal terrorist listing.
“It says you don’t have to be specifically calling for violence, but you do have to be acting in a way that increases the risk of communal violence or politically motivated violence,” Burke told ABC Insiders on Feb. 22 quoting the new anti-hate speech laws passed by the government in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack on Dec. 14 last year.
While Islamist group has shut down its Australian website following the passing of the laws, its European branch continues to operate online.
Founded in Jerusalem in 1953 and splintered from the Muslim Brotherhood—which is banned in several countries—Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global pan-Islamic Salafi movement.
The ideology is rooted in an ultra-hardline interpretation of Sunni Islam that seeks to return to what it defines as the “pure” practices of early Muslims, favouring a literal reading of Islamic texts and rejecting later influences.
In practice, this means it seeks a borderless global Islamic caliphate, and is staunchly against “Western” concepts like democracy, human rights, and national borders.
Where it differs from the Muslim Brotherhood is it chooses not to engage in the democratic process, and prefers other methods of recruiting and changing society.
Minister Burke said he had been advocating for a ban on the organisation for two decades.
“I’ve been fighting since my first term in Parliament—back in the days when the Liberal government was rolling out the red carpet for them at the Embassy and giving them speaking tour visas in Australia,” he said.
He outlined the next steps in the process, explaining that the department would now prepare a brief for ministerial consideration.
That brief must satisfy a second threshold. If cleared, the Leader of the Opposition will be notified and the Attorney-General must sign off before a listing is finalised.
“But the first stage, on the process of a prohibited group listing happening for Hizb ut-Tahrir is now complete, the ASIO advice is in,” he added.
Coalition home affairs spokesperson Jonathon Duniam welcomed the move, calling Hizb ut-Tahrir a “hideous and insidious organisation.”
“We’ve talked about it long enough … We are pleased this is happening, this is what we wanted to see with the laws,” he told ABC.
Burke also confirmed that the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network, which disbanded in January, is the second group to be banned under the new hate laws.
