Court of Appeals (UK): Shamima Begum who left east London in order to join ISIS, has won the legal battle to be allowed to return home to fight the government’s decision to revoke her UK citizenship. Begum left Bethnal Green in London with two teenage friends in 2015 to join Isis, when the terror group was at its height. Four years later, after its territorial defeat, she was found in a Syrian refugee camp, nine months pregnant. Her citizenship was revoked by the Home Office on grounds of security. The Court of Appeals partially overturned an earlier ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission which held that she had not been illegally rendered Stateless while she was in Syria because she was entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship.
The then Home Secretary, Sajid Javid had vehemently argued in the favour of Shamima’s citizenship revocation on the ground that she had the right to become a Bangladeshi citizen, the birth country of her parents. The British security sources have argued time and again that Shamima Begum represents a security risk, and that she was a member of Isis’s morality police: al-Hisba, during which time she had a reputation for strictness and used to carry a Kalashnikov rifle on her person.
Shamima Begum’s lawyers contended that she did not have a fair opportunity to give her side of the story and stripping of her citizenship without a chance to clear her name, is not justice.
Perusing her contentions, Lord Justice Flaux held that, “Notwithstanding the national security concerns about Ms Begum, I have reached the firm conclusion that given that the only way in which she can have a fair and effective appeal is to be permitted to come into the United Kingdom to pursue her appeal, fairness and justice must, on the facts of this case, outweigh the national security concerns.”
Source: The Guardian
