Shamima Begum has lost the appeal against the removal of her UK citizenship. But she is still British, whatever she may have done, writes James Greig
Shamima Begum’s bid to regain British citizenship has been rejected in court, despite there being a “credible” case that she was trafficked. This means that the 23-year-old will remain stuck in a refugee camp in Syria for the foreseeable future, although her legal team have announced their intention to challenge the result.
After disappearing from the public eye for years, Begum was discovered in 2019 by Anthony Lloyd, a Times war correspondent, living in a refugee camp in Syria for women and children who had escaped Isis. At this point, she was 19 and heavily pregnant, having already lost two children to disease. She told Lloyd that she was desperate to save the life of her unborn baby and wanted to return to Britain. The Times ran the story on the front page; she became once more a national hate figure, and Sajid Javid, Home Secretary at the time, promptly stripped her of her citizenship. Not long after, her baby died of a respiratory infection, aged just three weeks old.
Begum was just 15 years old when she travelled to Syria to join Isis in 2015, along with two classmates who were later killed by airstrikes. She had been groomed for months on the internet and, crucially, was legally a child. She later described herself as being isolated, lonely and detached at the time, which made her vulnerable to the influence of online extremists. At her first appeal, her lawyer said, “At its heart, this case concerns a British child aged 15 who was persuaded, influenced and affected with her friends by a determined and effective Isis propaganda machine.” It was later revealed by Scotland Yard that a people smuggler who was working for Canadian intelligence had helped the girls enter Syria – this is a form of entrapment and, in a sane world, would be considered a mitigating circumstance. During her latest appeal, her lawyers made the case that she was a victim of child trafficking and that she was brought to Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation, something to which she could not – as a minor – legally consent. This argument was deemed ‘credible’ by the presiding judge, even as he rejected her appeal.
After he met Begum, Anthony Lloyd reported that she was “still radicalised”, after she suggested that journalists murdered by Isis had been spies and described herself as “unphased” by the sight of a severed head. These remarks, wrote Lloyd in GQ, were “exactly what I would expect from a teen who had spent nearly three years living in the sealed echo chamber of the caliphate before turning 18”. However, he said she also seemed “far from irretrievable”, and expressed disillusionment with Isis: “There’s so much oppression and corruption going on that they don’t deserve victory,” she said. This sounds like someone who could be deradicalised, if given the chance, and she has grown even more remorseful in the time since. During an interview with ITV last year, she apologised to the British public and said she would 'rather die' than rejoin ISIS, and offered to help prevent vulnerable young people from being radicalised. There is no good reason why she doesn't deserve a second chance.
The Begum case, rather than being an outlier, is emblematic of a larger problem. Since 1981, British home secretaries have had the power to deprive people of their citizenship, if doing so is “conducive to the public good” and doesn’t render the person stateless – which is illegal under international law. However, the Immigration Act of 2014 – promoted by Theresa May – effectively granted the power to make British citizens stateless, as long as they could theoretically apply for another nationality. This power was only sporadically deployed until 2016. Its usage then ramped up the following year, when 104 people lost their citizenship, most of whom were jihadis or criminals who had held dual nationality.
Because making Begum stateless would be illegal, the British government has tried to defend its decision on the basis that her mother is Bangladeshi, and she is therefore eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship until the age of 21. But this isn’t true. Not only has she never lived there, but the country’s foreign minister has said outright that she would be refused entry. Unlike others who have been stripped of their citizenship for similar reasons, Begum has nowhere else to fall back on, and the UK’s own special immigration appeals commission has suggested that her current situation makes her vulnerable to torture and degrading treatment. Isn’t the point of human rights that they aren’t dependent on good behaviour?
A policy of stripping people's citizenship is inevitably racist in practice, because it almost exclusively imposed on racialised minorities (Jack Letts, a British-Canadian man whose citizenship was revoked due to alleged links with Isis is one exception that proves the rule). If you are white and British, it’s almost certainly never going to happen to you, regardless of what crime you commit. This racial disparity promotes the idea that certain segments of the population are only ever provisionally British, even if they are born and raised here. As the Home Office put it, “citizenship is a privilege, not a right” – but this principle doesn’t apply to everyone.
To make matters worse, a new clause added in 2021 means that the government can now revoke citizenship without warning or explanation if it’s not “reasonably practical” to inform someone. This legislation puts around six million people at risk of deportation, including people who have dual citizenship and also those who don’t, but theoretically could be eligible. The legislation also makes it extremely difficult for people to appeal against the deprivation of their citizenship, as the decision can be made before you even realise you’re at risk.
Just last month, a white British 15-year-old girl faced terror charges after being found in possession of instructions to make firebombs at explosives – at the time of her arrest, she had gouged a swastika on her forehead. This was clearly a vulnerable young person and the charges were dropped after it was revealed that she had been groomed online by far-right extremists. This was the right decision, but the contrast with how Begum has been treated shows a blatant double standard. If Begum was white, it seems obvious she would be widely thought of as a tragic victim of grooming and human trafficking. Today, she is a vulnerable young woman who has already suffered a great deal. Whether you think she should be punished or deradicalised, she should be allowed to return to the UK, where she was born and raised. Whatever she may have done, she is still British.