Review of listing and re-listing of six organisations as terrorist organisations under

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) has commenced a review of listing and re-listing of six organisations as terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (the Criminal Code).

The organisations are:

• Islamic State-Somalia is an Islamic State affiliated extremist group, established in 2014 by a group of disenfranchised al-Shabaab members in northern Somalia with the purpose of advancing an Islamic Caliphate in the horn of Africa.
• Abu Sayyaf Group is a separatist militant Islamist movement primarily operating out of the islands of Jolo and Basilan in the Sulu archipelago of the southern Philippines.
• al-Qa'ida is a Sunni Islamist extremist organisation which seeks to establish a trans-national Islamic Caliphate by removing, through violent means if necessary, governments in Muslim countries that it deems are 'un-Islamic'.
• al-Qa'ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb is an affiliate of al-Qa'ida which shares its anti-Western ideology and aims to remove 'un-Islamic' governments in Muslim countries in order to establish an Islamic Caliphate.
• Jabhat Fatah al-Sham is a Sunni Islamist extremist group based in Syria with links to al-Qa'ida, originally established in 2011 to oppose the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
• Jemaah Islamiyah is a jihadist group, inspired by the same ideology as al-Qa'ida, which regards the Indonesian Government and other governments in the region to be illegitimate and aims to revive a pure form of Islam governed by the tenets of Sharia law.

Under section 102.1A of the Criminal Code, the Committee may review listings of terrorist organisations and report its findings to each house of the Parliament within the 15 sitting day disallowance period.

Members of the public are welcome to make submissions to this review. Submissions should be provided no later than 5pm Friday, 2 August 2019.