Any British person who has a foreign-born parent will feel their status is more precarious after the court of appeal decision
The court of appeal ruled this morning that Shamima Begum had been lawfully deprived of her British citizenship. The 24-year-old’s citizenship was first revoked in 2019. She challenged that decision at a special immigration appeals commission last year, and lost. This latest ruling might represent the end of her hope to return home, although given the young woman’s circumstances – all three of her children have died, she lives in a refugee camp they call the “mini caliphate”, and is thought of only periodically by her countrymen in order to be pilloried then forgotten again – it would be foolish to try to guess at her levels of resilience or despair.
The judges were careful to stress that the ruling didn’t represent any comment on the sympathy or otherwise it was reasonable to have for Begum – rather, that there was nothing unlawful in Sajid Javid’s deprivation decision. The ruling hadn’t failed to take into account that Begum had been groomed and trafficked, which would have put it in breach of the UK’s anti-slavery protections, and was the contention of her appeal.
It’s hard to conceive of what grooming and trafficking mean, if not what happened to Begum, painstakingly documented by Josh Baker in his podcast documentary last year, Shamima Begum – Return from Isis. She left the UK aged 15, and her lawyers highlighted numerous failings of the state – Begum’s school, the Met police, Tower Hamlets council – that even allowed her to get as far as Turkey. Her entry into Syria was reportedly partly facilitated by an informant for Canadian intelligence, so the state failings go beyond even our own.
It can be both. I worked briefly in youth work and young offender institutes. Some young people were simultaneously fucking terrifying and dangerous, while also wheeling and dealing like a Kray twin crossed with Del Boy (a 12 year old kid who carried 5 mobile phones - all stolen - for different “business purposes” comes to my mind).
Doesn’t mean they aren’t victims as well and doesn’t mean they should be treated as adult criminals.
I don’t particularly care about the most granular definition of “terrorism” in the context of the wide definition of “child abuse”.
It isn’t a “granular” definition - read her wiki page. She stitched suicide vests, so they couldn’t remove the explosives without going “boom”. She enforced “morality” laws. She carried an AK with her. She was regarded as an enforcer. She tried to recruit other girls into ISIS.
She got lured into joining by watching beheading videos and the luxuries of living as a terrorist. She literally said “I still hold ‘some’ of the UK’s values”. She didn’t regret going to Syria. She excused terrorist attacks. She excused rape in ISIS. She has no remorse for what she did while there.
This is a textbook case of a law working. The only difference between her, and other people deprived of citizenship for similar things, is that she has a PR agency.