Australia Plans to Ban Foreign 'Hate Preachers'

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Wednesday that he will soon bring in a system to ban foreign "hate preachers" from entering the country.

The government will also try to banisg the radical Islamic organization Hizb ut Tahrir, through amendments to the counter terrorism laws, he said.

Abbot's comments come in the wake of a public meeting called by the Hizb ut Tahri in Sydney on Friday. The meeting  called "The War to End a Blessed Revolution"   was about the U.S. led operation against the Islamic State.

Abbot expressed frustration in not being able to ban the Hizb ut Tahrir though many other countries had banned it. Under existing counter terrorism laws of Australia, the government can only ban groups that engage in terrorism, leaving out groups that promote terrorism. 

However, Abbot said that he does not require new laws to ban hate preachers from coming to Australia.

"By all means let Australians who want to say stupid things say stupid things, but there's no point in importing troublemakers from overseas to stir people up and that's what I want to see in place very, very swiftly," Abbott told Sydney Radio 2GB.

"We should have a system in place which red-cards these hate preachers and stops them coming to Australia," he added, reports the Associated Press.

Elaborating further, he said that there should be better coordination between security and immigration agencies in order to make sure that known extremists are denied entry visas. The red- card system would enable the security officials to screen, identify and refuse visas to certain individuals, Abbot said.

Abbot said that over the years different people had come to Australia causing trouble and strife and the government now wanted to ensure that hate preachers do not come to the country, reports BBC.

Australia had raised its terror threat level from "medium" to "high" last month. It had also conducted a major counter- terrorism operation triggered by an intelligence report that Islamic State militants were planning to conduct a demonstration killing in Australia.