Shamima Begum, the woman who left Britain to join Islamic State in Syria, has lost the initial stage of her appeal against the government’s decision to revoke her UK citizenship.
The 20-year-old woman of Bangladeshi origin left London in 2015, aged 15, as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State. She was found in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
The British government revoked her citizenship later that month in 2019.
A tribunal ruled that Shamima could be stripped of her nationality because she had not been left stateless.
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission or SIAC, a semi-secret court which hears national security cases, said she could turn instead to Bangladesh for citizenship.
Under international law, it is illegal to deprive nationals of citizenship if to do so would leave them stateless.
Shamima is understood to have a claim to Bangladeshi nationality through her mother.
Rejecting the woman’s case that she had been left stateless, the Commission concluded that she was “a citizen of Bangladesh by descent.”
However, in February 2019, Bangladesh’s ministry of foreign affairs said Begum was not a Bangladeshi citizen and there was “no question” of her being allowed into the country.
At present, she remains in Camp Roj, a refugee camp in northern Syria. The commission also ruled that Javid had not exposed Begum to human rights abuses by leaving her in the camp.
Source: BBC NEWS
