Isis schoolgirl Shamima Begum loses bid to overturn removal of UK citizenship
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Shamima Begum, who departed London when she was just 15 years old to join the extremist group ISIS in Syria, made an unsuccessful attempt on Friday to appeal the court's decision to revoke her British citizenship in the Court of Appeal.
The decision made by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission last year, which stated that the government lawfully removed Begum's citizenship in 2019, has been upheld by Lady Carr, the Chief Justice, along with two other judges.
Sajid Javid, who was the home secretary at the time, decided to take action based on confidential reports regarding national security concerns. These reports deemed the individual in question to be a persistent threat to the UK.
Many people have debated Begum's situation due to her age when she left for Syria. Those who support her have claimed she was too inexperienced to have made a thoughtful decision.
Begum has suffered yet another setback in her quest to return to the UK, as ruled on Friday. Her previous attempt in 2021 to plead her case before the SIAC by arguing for her re-entry was rejected by the Supreme Court.
The conclusions regarding Begum's situation were based on information readily accessible to the public as well as undisclosed data from intelligence agencies.
Lady Carr's decision to throw out the appeal based on both public and confidential information was accurate in my opinion. The other two judges concurred with her judgment.
The attorneys representing Begum contested that the ruling made by SIAC in favor of Javid's initial verdict was flawed on five different accounts.
One of the statements made was that Begum, who is currently 24 years old and residing in Syria, would essentially be without a nationality. Javid had previously stated that she possessed Bangladeshi citizenship due to her parents, but Bangladesh officials have declared that she will not be allowed back into the country.
Begum's team claimed that Javid did not give enough thought to the possibility that Begum may have been forced into sexual exploitation.
As soon as she reached Syria to join the terrorist group, she was married to Yago Riedijk, an ISIS fighter who hails from the Netherlands and was eight years older than her.
Begum journeyed to Syria through Istanbul accompanied by two of her schoolmates from Tower Hamlets, an area located in the eastern part of London.
Begum had a total of three kids with Riedjik, unfortunately, all of them passed away. In 2019, she made an attempt to come back to the UK, following an investigation conducted by UK journalists who found her residing in a Syrian refugee camp after Isis’s “caliphate” fell in the area.
In 2022, there was even more commotion around Begum's situation because of recent discoveries about Mohammed Al Rasheed. Al Rasheed was the one who helped Begum and her pals travel to Syria from Istanbul, but it was revealed that he was relaying information to Canada's intelligence agency at the same time, according to a report by the BBC.
The lawyers of Begum are required to make a decision by March 1 regarding whether or not they will challenge the recent verdict.
