UK: Court ordered against Shamima Begum return to Britain

The United Kingdom’s highest court has ruled Shamima Begum, a woman who was stripped of her citizenship after fleeing to Syria to join ISIL (ISIS), should not be allowed to return to the country to challenge the decision, because she poses a security risk.

Begum left London in 2015 when she was 15 and traveled to Syria, via Turkey, with two friends from her school. Now 21, she is currently being held in a detention camp in Syria after her British citizenship was revoked in 2019 by then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

Javid argued at the time that Begum was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship, the birth country of her parents.

But international law forbids countries from making people stateless by revoking their only citizenship.
The UK’s Court of Appeal previously agreed she could only have a fair appeal of Javid’s decision if she were allowed back into the country.

But the UK’s Supreme Court overturned that decision in its unanimous ruling on Friday; meaning that although she can still pursue her appeal against the decision to take away her citizenship; she cannot do that in the UK.

The UK government, guided by intelligence agencies; argued that those who aligned with ISIL posed a serious risk to national security.

“If a vital public interest – in this case, the safety of the public; makes it impossible for a case to be fairly heard; then the courts cannot ordinarily hear it,” the Supreme Court judges concluded.

PM welcomed court decision

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the ruling.

“We are pleased with the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision. As we’ve said before the government’s priority is maintaining our national security and decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are not taken lightly,” his spokesman told reporters.

“We will always ensure the safety and security of the UK and will not allow anything to jeopardize this.”