Ban on jihadi bride won’t affect son
BY CHRIS HUGHES reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk HOME Secretary Savid Javid yesterday left the door open for Islamic State bride Shamima Begum’s baby boy to come to Britain.
He told the Commons Begum’s ban from returning to Britain will have no impact on her baby son’s nationality.
Javid said: “Children should not suffer. So, if a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child.”
The 19-year-old, who fled London for Syria aged 15, said it was “heartbreaking” when she heard Javid had cancelled her passport. She may try to move with her newborn son to the Netherlands, where her jailed jihadi husband Yago Riedijk is from, and await his release.
Javid’s ban sparked an intense legal row, with Begum’s lawyer Tasnime Akunjee saying: “We are considering all legal avenues to challenge this decision.”
Begum said: “I feel like it’s a bit unjust on me and my son. It’s kind of heartbreaking to read. My family made it sound like it would be a lot easier for me to come back to the UK when I was speaking to them in Baghuz.”
She claimed other returnees are “being sent back to Britain”.
Begum left London’s Bethnal Green in February 2015 with two other girls to join Islamic State. Last week she declared she wanted to come home with her son, saying she has lost two children and her husband was under arrest.
The British Nationality Act 1981 gives Javid power to cancel her British citizenship if it is “conducive to the public good”. But international law forbids nations from making people stateless.
The move prompted speculation that Begum, reportedly of Bangladeshi heritage, holds dual nationality or would be eligible for citizenship of another country. Lawyer Akunjee argued she was born in the UK, has never had a Bangladeshi passport and is not a dual citizen.
Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said Begum could challenge the decision, describing it as a “complex issue” that could take “two years” to resolve.
Begum, who gave birth at the weekend, prompted a public backlash in Britain by appearing unrepentant about seeing severed heads and appearing to justify the 2017 Manchester bombing that killed 22.
Diane Abbott, Labour spokeswoman on home issues, said: “If the Government is proposing to make Shamima Begum stateless it is not just a breach of international human rights law but a failure to meet our security obligations to the international community.”
Former Tory minister Ken Clarke said: “What you can’t do is leave them in a camp in Syria being even more radicalised... until they disperse themselves through the world and make their way back here.”
Rachel Logan, Amnesty International UK’s legal programme director, said: “The Home Secretary’s revoking of Shamima Begum’s British citizenship is legally and morally questionable.”