If the ISIS women and children come home, Australia will be safer

I need to clarify why, as a doctor, I have been in Syria, helping with efforts to bring children and their mothers back to Australia. Thus far, given the sensitivities, and for the children’s sake, I have chosen not to enter the political debate that I have seen swirling at home. But now, while I am still in the Middle East, away from my beloved Australia, I must explain my role, dispel misinformation and respond to a particularly flawed policy proposal to make it a crime to assist in the repatriation of the 34 Australian citizens trapped in Syria’s detention camps.

This week, my place of work in Sydney has received bomb and death threats, and I am dismayed by the dog-whistling that I have seen from afar.

There have been numerous media reports – some accurate, some quite inaccurate – about my role. My involvement with the innocent children trapped in the al-Roj and al-Hawl detention camps stretches back more than a decade. In 2015, I said publicly that these children were the first victims of the terrible actions of their fathers. We know those men’s victims would be numerous, given their involvement with such a despicable terrorist group as Islamic State.

In the past nine days, however, there has been much misinformation. We have not, to our disappointment, received any help from the Albanese government to repatriate the families. Reports about my personal relationships with ministers, including Tony Burke, and MPs are irrelevant, and the insinuations attached to those stories are wholly inaccurate. Any efforts I undertake, including this repatriation attempt, are mine alone.

We told no one in authority of our plans. We knew that one door, with its hinges in Canberra, had slammed shut. We felt we needed to explore another.

I was particularly concerned on Monday to read of Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s proposal that anyone supporting the return of the families should be subject to criminal charges. That, it seems, would include respected and world-leading charity organisations; it would include family and supporters of the trapped Australians; it would include me.

It reminded me of how I was sentenced by a Lebanese military tribunal, in absentia and at the behest of Hezbollah, for my work as part of Rozana.org, which helps Palestinian health practitioners and builds bridges between like-minded medical leaders in Palestine and Israel. The similarities with the Coalition proposal are disturbingly similar.

The current hardline position, on both sides of the political fence, was not always so cut and dried. While our past efforts to help these trapped Australians were not always successful – and were often met with scorn – the Morrison Liberal government and the Albanese Labor government, in its first term, did assist with the repatriation of some women and children. It was a matter of good policy and the simple fact that they were, and remain, Australian citizens.

Since 2019, when I had dinner with then-prime minister Scott Morrison and his immigration minister, David Coleman, I have pleaded the case of the kids. I also had dinner with the then-home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, and he agreed to help repatriate eight children.

I have acted as an informal medical consultant for the families stuck in the camps, in difficult conditions, to support their well-being. I have provided medical advice on panic and asthma attacks, sickness from the cold, tonsillitis, chilblains and other physical and psychological illnesses. As it has always been, it is my job and my duty as a doctor to support those in need. The plight these families face is disastrous and life-threatening, particularly for the youngest of the children and the mothers with health challenges.

In 2022, after the Albanese government repatriated 13 children and four women from al-Roj, Australian organisations, fellow citizens and I feared for the children remaining in the camp. But such was the political blowback, we were aware that another repatriation was unlikely, at least not any time soon.

As is the right of every Australian, citizens – whoever or wherever they are – can apply for and receive a renewed passport. This is a legal right, and that is what has happened with the 34 women and children still trapped in Syria. That does not, in my view, constitute “government help” in repatriating the families. We would have liked some help, but sadly, it has not come.

Australia-based family members of those trapped have done incredible work trying to support their loved ones. At the heart of this situation are people and innocent young children, some of whom have known nothing but the barbed-wire enclosure of the camps.

All of us involved were aware of the sensitivities following the horrific IS-inspired terrorist attack in Bondi on December 14. That atrocity tore at the very fabric of Australia. In its immediate aftermath, I paid my respects at Bondi Pavilion and at the funeral of Rabbi Eli Schlanger. Fifteen innocent lives taken. I wanted Jewish Australians, my fellow Australians, to know that their community would never be alone.

Meanwhile, we became increasingly concerned that the situation in Syria would continue to deteriorate. If we failed to act, we feared, it would soon become too late to act at all.

In the long run, Australia will be safer if the families can return in an orderly fashion to our shores, where the children may receive proper support and the mothers – where relevant and in accordance with existing legislation – would face any consequences for their ill-fated decision to travel to the Middle East.

Children should not suffer the consequences of a parent’s evil deeds. Imagine if we extended across our great nation the view that children should bear the brunt of their parents’ actions, as we are collectively allowing to happen to the kids in the al-Roj camp. Ours would be a lesser nation. I don’t believe Australia, my home, is so mean-spirited.

Jamal Rifi is a Lebanese-born Australian general practitioner in Sydney. He is known for his community work, including efforts to prevent the radicalisation of young Muslims.