Infamous jihadi bride loses bid to get British citizenship back BritaIn
An English woman who as a teenager ran away to join the Islamic State group has lost a legal challenge aimed at restoring her citizenship, which was revoked on national security grounds.
Shamima Begum, one of three east London schoolgirls who travelled to Syria in 2015, resurfaced at a refugee camp in Syria last year and told reporters she wanted to come home. But her apparent lack of remorse has triggered criticism in Britain, and her own family have expressed shock at her lack of repentance.
Former home secretary Sajid Javid revoked Begum’s British citizenship, but she challenged the decision before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. She has argued that she is not the citizen of another country, and that
Javid’s decision left her stateless.
But the tribunal yesterday ruled in Javid’s favour, saying his decision did not breach the Home Office’s ‘‘extraterritorial human rights policy by exposing Ms Begum to a real risk of death or inhuman or degrading treatment’’.
The tribunal ruled that she was a citizen of Bangladesh by descent, and therefore not rendered said the appealed.
Begum’s family have long argued that she is from the United Kingdom and never held a Bangladeshi passport.
Begum, now 20, was one of three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green Academy who left their homes and families to join Isis after boarding a flight from London to Istanbul.
She claims she married a Dutch convert to Islam 10 days stateless. Her lawyer decision would be after arriving in Isis territory, with all three of her school friends also reportedly marrying foreign Isis fighters. She gave birth to three children while in Syria, all of whom died.
Although it is unclear whether Begum has committed a crime, her case has thrown into sharp relief larger questions about how Western societies will deal with others who joined Isis but want to return to their home countries now that the extremist group has collapsed.