In short
- Burke said his department had received advice from ASIO that the group met the legal threshold for a ban.
- Founded in 1953, Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic political organization with branches around the world.
The federal government has begun the process of banning the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir under new hate group laws, Home Secretary Tony Burke has revealed.
Burke said on ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday that his department had received advice from the Australian Security Intelligence Organization that the group met the legal threshold to be banned.
Based on anti-hate group laws introduced after the Bondi Beach terror attack, a new legal framework has been put in place that allows the Home Secretary to ban groups that commit or advocate hate crimes on the basis of race, nationality or ethnicity.
Burke said his department would now prepare a briefing to convince him that the radical group of clerics increases the risk of hate-motivated violence.
The opposition leader would then be informed before the attorney general signed the laws.
“This is the first time that we can potentially ban a group that is not on the terrorist list,” he said.
“It says you don’t have to specifically call for it, but you do have to act in a way that increases the risk of community violence or politically motivated violence.”
The federal government announced in December that the laws were aimed at “preachers of hate.” They named Hizb ut-Tahrir and the National Socialist Network, a neo-Nazi group that split in January, as organizations they wanted banned.
Founded in 1953, Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic political organization with branches around the world. The name translates to “Party of Liberation”.
The organization has been banned in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Egypt, Turkey, China and several countries in Central Asia.
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