Article on Shamima Begum

Also, @Xenia I must thank you for those two links that you shared. I’m still skim-reading the article in the second link, but I don’t think it supports what you think it does:

Such heightened political discourse as to who is or is not deemed a threat to national security deepened the formation of a two-tier citizenship system (Macklin 2015; Trimbach and Reiz 2018). Intensifying this system in the name of securitization established a method to legally alienate citizens: citizenship revocation (Dobrowolsky 2007; Macklin 2014; Zedner 2016). Practising citizenship revocation under the guise of national security was comprehensively pioneered by the United States following 9/11 through changes in legislation,6 and Britain quickly followed suit.

@Xenia Is she really a citizen of Bangladesh? Or did she choose to become one after being stripped of her British citizenship?

According to this, you don’t automatically get dual citizenship.

What you shared was actually interesting to read. Also if you had read what you just shared:

It shared the court judgement, but then goes on to say:

This was despite the court accepting that conditions in the Al Roj camp would amount to a breach of her right to protection against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment — if she could rely directly on the European Convention on Human Rights, which she cannot. Ms Begum’s solicitor, Daniel Furner of Birnberg Peirce, said that “the logic of the decision will appear baffling, accepting as it does the key underlying factual assessments of extreme danger and extreme unfairness and yet declining to provide any legal remedy”.

It also says:

Was Shamima Begum left stateless?

This is an important question because someone who is British from birth cannot be deprived of their citizenship if they would be left stateless: section 40(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981. In effect, that means that citizenship deprivation can only be deployed against the children of immigrant parents. Those who have inherited another nationality from their parents have less protection against deprivation.

The government argued that Ms Begum, who was born in the UK to Bangladeshi parents, is a citizen of Bangladesh. Proving that is a matter of Bangladeshi nationality law, a hopelessly complicated field. Each side produced an expert witness with opposing takes on how Bangladeshi citizenship is transmitted to children of Bangladeshi heritage born outside the country’s borders.

www.freemovement.org.uk/shamima-begum-loses-statelessness-argument-against-citizenship-deprivation/

academic.oup.com/jhrp/article/12/2/341/5910762

The courts (and I) do not agree she has been left stateless.

She does not have any other citizenship though: her father might be Bangladeshi but she is not. By stripping someone of citizenship with the excuse that they have the "potential" for citizenship elsewhere, you're essentially creating two classes of people, those descended from immigrants and those with all four grandparents born in the UK.

Look at Jack Letts: even though he's always had Canadian citizenship, it took much longer for his British citizenship to be removed. And look at his parents: they were both convicted of funding terrorism, but his Canadian father is still living in the UK with no threat of deportation. Why?

@CrumpetyTea I think it was supposed to be a deterrent, but it’s definitely a slippery slope and just shows to ethnic minorities that they’re not on an equal footing because they have “somewhere else they can go” based on their heritage and in Shamima’s case that’s Bangladesh.

Even if she had been an adult and even if she had been a male fighter I still think she is british - good or bad - i don't think citizenship (by birth) is something you should be able to lose.

Begum's husband is several years older than she is so I assume he was an adult when he
made his decision. Had Begum also been an adult when she left Britain I wouldn't feel the same sense of responsibility - not sympathy - towards her. But she was 15: not old enough to legally leave school, marry or join the armed forces. If you're not old enough to fight for your country then I don't think you're old enough to betray it either.

I think her suppprters and advisors made a mistake in making repatriation efforts public. Sometimes this can help but in this case it has done the opposite - it has meant the government has felt obliged to use her as an example of how if you become a traitor you cannot just return to pick up your life if things don't work out how you want or carry on your traitorous activities within the uk.

That’s fair enough, I don’t have to agree with your opinion to respect it. Two main points though - firstly, we have already taken 100’s of (male) fighters back, we just don’t hear about it as the media choose not to emphasis it and secondly, my motivation for having her back is more to do with national security than pity.

So far as it being "100% our situation to resolve" I'm afraid the plight of Begum wouldn't make it on to my personal top 1,000 injustices I want something done about.

France has handed over French citizens to be tried in Iraq where if this report is correct, 11 French citizens have been executed.

foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/15/how-europe-is-handing-off-its-isis-militants-to-iraq/

Those of you who think she should be repatriated will be bemused I expect to find yourselves in agreement with Donald Trump. It's not specific to Begum but he thinks European countries should repatriate their citizens.

www.npr.org/2019/12/10/783369673/europe-remains-reluctant-to-repatriate-its-isis-fighters-here-s-why

This explains some of the reasons why countries are reluctant to repatriate these people- clearly on the one hand they are traitors and terrorists but on the other hand the judicial systems of the countries they were happy to betray protects them because of the difficulties of producing evidence which would satisfy a court in Europe.
eeradicalization.com/why-european-countries-do-not-repatriate-their-foreign-fighters/

Plus that would mean legally recognising the ‘marriage’. It’s 100% our situation to resolve. It’s pretty off that anyone would disagree.

There was a suggestion she might have Dutch citizenship via her husband but the Dutch have refused to repatriate him or his family.

[quote Xenia]stumbled this is not correct "Under international law the British had no right to take away her citizenship." She is not like most of us on the thread with one passport, one country where we have a right to citizenship - UK. She has the Bangladeshi right which is why she and others with the 2 citzenships can under international law lose one as it does not leave them stateless. She has lost her English court litigation so far including the recent Supreme Court decision (God knows how much that has cost the British tax payer and mumsnetters so far) which held she did not have a right to be brought back to the UK to continue her fight and which held she was a danger to the country. the Supreme Court 2021 summary is shorter than the judgment and easier to read:

www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2020-0156-press-summary.pdf[/quote]
Bangladesh is denying her having citizenship (understandably; they won't want her anyway).
Which means, legally she only has British citizenship. We can't force another country to give or confirm citizenship. Imagine the outrage if the situation was reversed.

I find some of the comments on here very upsetting. I agree completely with stumbledin.

Think of the number of times we've talked on here about how vulnerable teenage girls are, both to sexual predators and to people telling them they should mutilate their bodies to become the opposite sex. Teenage brains are not fully developed. We know that.

My heart goes out to Shamima Begum. She came under some very bad influences, and she was foolish, but so frankly are a lot of 15 year olds. She has had three babies, much too young, and all have died. I very much doubt she is a threat to anyone. Of course we should have her back, not least because she is our responsibility.

The irony is we do have dangerous Islamist terrorists in the UK. Most of them are men. Making a huge fuss about this young woman is a deflection from the real problem we have of homegrown terrorism.

Criminal responsibility wasn't my point. I'm not saying she shouldn't face justice.

She was a child
But well beyond the age of criminal responsibility.

stumbled this is not correct "Under international law the British had no right to take away her citizenship." She is not like most of us on the thread with one passport, one country where we have a right to citizenship - UK. She has the Bangladeshi right which is why she and others with the 2 citzenships can under international law lose one as it does not leave them stateless. She has lost her English court litigation so far including the recent Supreme Court decision (God knows how much that has cost the British tax payer and mumsnetters so far) which held she did not have a right to be brought back to the UK to continue her fight and which held she was a danger to the country. the Supreme Court 2021 summary is shorter than the judgment and easier to read:

www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2020-0156-press-summary.pdf

Thanks @Floisme - I'll try and figure out how to do that. I am fairly newish here and have no idea what rule I transgressed.

A slightly different restatement of my deleted point: At 15 your brain is not fully developed. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are, you are naturally not going to be able to fully understand all the long-term consequences. She deserves our compassion and help.

This is the same reason I oppose the idea of puberty blockers and trans surgery for children of the same age, no matter how certain they are that they understand the consequences and really want it.

So many people picking and choosing bits that suit them.

Under international law the British had no right to take away her citizenship.

She left when she was under age.

This is not about someone committing a crime in another country. This is about displaced persons resulting from war.

She should be repatriated.

And it is so typical of the english attitude that it is always up to everyone else to clear up our mess.

Just like we created the displacement of millions of Palestinians and then expect neighbouging countries to help them suvive in refugee camps for over 70s years.

And like Palestine having stuck our over priviledged white european fingers into a situation that was nothing to do with us, and made it worse, we then ran away and left others to clear up the mess.

What a shining example of a "christian" country.

Nobody is talking about exonerating. She should face trial. That is the correct procedure. As other european countries are doing

It is irrelevant what you think about her and her politics.

As I say thanks to the blatant right wing nonsense of the mainstream media in this country there really are people who seem to think others should abide by the law but we shouldn't.

Just like Boris Johnson. We now have to get the Supreme Court to tell our Prime Minister what is legitimate and what isnt because he thinks he can do what suits his view point. ie proroguing Parliament.

Or the children of the Windrush migrants, legitimately here as citizens and then the government, thinks it can trick and deceive them out of that right and deport them to a country they have never lived in.

And you can bet if she had been the misguided daughter of some nice white middle class parents there would be a huge uproar about how she should be "bought home" and no doubt there would be a tv series made about her.

Looking for "plausible" loopholds to deny her her rights is about as low as you can get.

I only saw it very briefly Singing and I didn't notice anything, but it might have been down to the use of individual words. I think if you contact MNHQ they will usually explain.

Why was my post deleted? Do I get to find out? I can't think of anything in it that was controversial...

So she wouldn't have considered old enough to board a plane by herself? I didn't realise that. And yet old enough to understand the meaning of renouncing your citizenship?