Court refuses to restore British citizenship to woman who joined Islamic State in 2015

a woman who was stripped of British nationality after traveling to Syria as a teenager to marry a band fighter Islamic State lost its legal battle on Wednesday to overturn the decision.

Judge Robert Jay’s decision means that Shamima Begum23, is unable to return to the UK from his current home in a refugee camp in northern Syria.

Begum was 15 when she left her East London home to go to Syria with two classmates in 2015. There she married an ISIS fighter and had three childrennone of which survived.

In February 2019, he said that left stateless when the then British Home Secretary, Sajid Javidrevoked her British citizenship on national security grounds after being found in the Syrian camp.

A UK court ruled in 2020 that he was not stateless because he was “Bangladeshi citizen by descent”.

Last year, the British High Court refused Begum permission to enter the UK to defend his citizenship case. He then took his case to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

Rejecting his appeal on Wednesday, Jay said that “under our constitutional agreement, these sensitive issues should be assessed by the Secretary of State and not by the Commission”.

However, he said that Begum’s arguments had “considerable force” and that Javid’s conclusion that he voluntarily traveled to Syria “is as stark as it is callous”.

“Furthermore, there is some merit to the argument that those advising the Secretary of State see this as a black and white issue, when many would say there are shades of gray“, he added.

The Home Office said it was “satisfied that the court ruled in favor of the government’s position”.

Begum is among hundreds of Europeans whose fate after the 2019 fall of the self-proclaimed caliphate Islamist extremists has proven to be a thorny issue for governments.

Begum’s lawyer, Samantha Knightstold SIAC’s five-day hearing last November that Begum had been “influenced” along with her friends by a “determined and effective” “propaganda machine” of the ISIS group.

There was “overwhelming” evidence that he had been “recruited, transported, transferred, harbored and received in Syria for the purpose of ‘sexual exploitation’ and ‘marriage’ to an adult male”he added in his written allegations.

The process by which the government made the decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship was “extraordinary” and “too fast”he added.

James Eadie, speaking on behalf of the government, said Begum ‘travelled, aligned and stayed in Syria for four years’ and only left IS-held territory for security reasons “and not because of a real dissociation from the group”.

Javid “adequately considered” all the factors before making his decision, and the case was about “national security”, not the human traffickinghe added.

Begum’s apparent lack of remorse in early interviews sparked outrage, but she has since expressed regret for her actions and sympathy for IS victims.

In a documentary last year, he said he quickly realized upon his arrival in Syria that IS was “trapping people” to increase the numbers of the caliphate and “put on a good face”.

An estimated 900 people traveled from Britain to Syria and Iraq to join IS. Among them, some 150 would have been stripped of their citizenship.

(With information from AFP)