Any British person who has a foreign-born parent will feel their status is more precarious after the court of appeal decision
The court of appeal ruled this morning that Shamima Begum had been lawfully deprived of her British citizenship. The 24-year-old’s citizenship was first revoked in 2019. She challenged that decision at a special immigration appeals commission last year, and lost. This latest ruling might represent the end of her hope to return home, although given the young woman’s circumstances – all three of her children have died, she lives in a refugee camp they call the “mini caliphate”, and is thought of only periodically by her countrymen in order to be pilloried then forgotten again – it would be foolish to try to guess at her levels of resilience or despair.
The judges were careful to stress that the ruling didn’t represent any comment on the sympathy or otherwise it was reasonable to have for Begum – rather, that there was nothing unlawful in Sajid Javid’s deprivation decision. The ruling hadn’t failed to take into account that Begum had been groomed and trafficked, which would have put it in breach of the UK’s anti-slavery protections, and was the contention of her appeal.
It’s hard to conceive of what grooming and trafficking mean, if not what happened to Begum, painstakingly documented by Josh Baker in his podcast documentary last year, Shamima Begum – Return from Isis. She left the UK aged 15, and her lawyers highlighted numerous failings of the state – Begum’s school, the Met police, Tower Hamlets council – that even allowed her to get as far as Turkey. Her entry into Syria was reportedly partly facilitated by an informant for Canadian intelligence, so the state failings go beyond even our own.
And where does a governments failure to protect a 15 year old figure into all of this.
I’m not trying to argue that she is some sweet innocent. But an impressionable 15 year old stupid girl ended up in over her head.
And if she is a citizen, maybe the country should bring her home and punish her appropriately.
Have you read what she did over there? If not, check it out. If the country were to punish her, she would get life in prison. She absolutely didn’t end up “in over her head” - she fit in perfectly. She tried to recruit other women into ISIS. She got lured by beheading videos and the luxuries of living as a terrorist. She wasn’t some precious girl that did something stupid, got into a very bad place and got shown “her place”. She was the one doing the “showing” since she was part of the morality police.
She sounds like exactly the kind of person that shouldn’t face trial, then. Good job we refused to allow her to come home, removing any possibility of arresting her at the border to face justice and putting her child into care so it has a chance of a good life, then. Really drew a line under that one.
Yeah it’s horrible. It scares the hell out of me that a young impressionable Person can, by forces incomprehensible to me, be radicalised to an extend that they end up like this.
But make no mistake, this was done TO her before she ended up there doing the horrible things she did.
What combination of factors led her down the path she ended up on is something we should be able to protect our youth from, shouldn’t we? And if we fail, isn’t it also our responsibility to make sure we correct that using the legal system, instead of making it someone else’s problem?
She is not blameless, she has agency, but with minors the situation is way more complicated in my mind.
Her citizenship was revoked when she was 20. The situation is really simple - you are advocating for a terrorist.
Cause once there she could just as easily leave as she came.
… What? That even doesn’t make any sense. The only reason she wanted to come back, was because her kid got sick. She could have left Syria any time before that. She went to the media, when the government found out she’s a terrorist, they banned her from comming back. This isn’t some contrived legal case with “maybehs”, “oh noehs” etc. This is open and shut, obvious threat to national security wanting back in. She isn’t remorseful at all.
I’m not saying she should be welcomed with open arms as if nothing happened. She deserves to be punished, but not by ignoring responsibility of society about how she got into the situation.
I guess we will need to disagree on this.