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Britain to strip IS teen of citizenship: lawyer
LONDON, Feb 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Britain will strip citizenship from a UK
teenager who joined the Islamic State group in Syria but now wants to return
home with her newborn baby, a lawyer for her family said Tuesday.
Shamima Begum’s fate has stirred controversy since she and two friends fled
London to join the terror network four years ago when she was aged just 15.
The case points to a dilemma facing many European countries, divided over
whether to allow jihadists and IS sympathisers home to face prosecution or
barring them over security concerns as the so-called “caliphate” crumbles.
A lawyer for her family, Tasnime Akunjee, said on Twitter that they were
“very disappointed with the Home Office’s intention to have an order made
depriving Shamima of her citizenship,” and that they were considering “all
legal avenues”.
ITV News reported that the Home Office has sent a letter to Begum’s mother,
received Tuesday, notifying the family of the decision which it said the teen
had the right to appeal.
Britain’s Home Office reportedly believes that Begum is entitled to claim
citizenship there.
“In order to protect this country, (the home secretary) has the power to
deprive someone of their British citizenship where it would not render them
stateless,” the Press Association reported the Home Office as saying, adding
it would not comment on individual cases.
Begum is currently in a refugee camp in northeast Syria where she fled to
escape fighting in the east of the country along with hundreds of other
people with links to IS.
At the weekend she gave birth to her third child, and appealed to British
authorities to show “compassion” by allowing her to raise the baby in Britain
— while expressing no regret over having joined IS.
She has previously given birth to two other children after marrying in
Syria. Both children have died, apparently from illness and malnutrition.
“I’m afraid he might even die in this camp,” Begum said of her newborn. “I
feel a lot of people should have sympathy for me, for everything I’ve been
through,” she told Sky News, adding that “I didn’t know what I was getting
into when I left”.
However, in an interview with the BBC on Monday, she compared the
Manchester Arena bombing to military strikes on IS strongholds, calling the
terror attack “retaliation”.
European countries have been grappling with what to do with foreign
fighters detained in Syria by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who
have warned they may not be able to guard their jails once US troops leave.
The British government on Monday rebuffed US President Donald Trump’s call
to take back alleged UK jihadists captured in the war-ravaged country.
Trump had called on Britain, France, Germany and other European allies “to
take back over 800 IS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on
trial”.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman said the fighters should instead
face justice in places where they committed their crimes.
BSS/AFP/GMR/1046 hrs