I think pretty much the whole country will be jumping for joy today after a judge dismissed ISIS bride Shamima Begum’s appeal against the decision to remove her British Citizenship.
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In case you forgot, Home Secretary Sajid Javid removed her citizenship back in 2019 after she was discovered in a refugee camp and it emerged that she and two school friends had left the country at the age of 15 a with to go and join ISIS and fight for the Islamic State. She then went on to have three children after marrying another ISIS fighter in the group, all of which have now sadly died.
Begum was the subject of a five day hearing back in November, but today the special immigration appeals commission (Siac) decided that the revocation of her citizenship back in 2019 was fully lawful. Mr Justice Jay told the semi-secret court dealing with the case that her appeal had now been fully dismissed and has essentially rejected the argument that she was a victim of child trafficking.
BREAKING: Shamima Begum will not be allowed to return to the UK, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has ruled.
The court decided to dismiss the 23-year-old’s appeal on all groundshttps://t.co/ZwnTJdIQpb
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23 year old Begum is currently spending her time in the the al-Roj refugee camp in north-east Syria, which she has described as ‘worse than prison’ because there was no limit to the length of her detention there. The fact that she’s lost this appeal makes it extremely unlikely that she’ll ever return to the UK as she won’t be able to win her passport back.
The ISIS Bride will now continue to spend her time in al-Roj, although there is a possibility she could seek Bangladeshi citizenship as her father has some heritage there. However, she could also face the death sentence if repatriated there so probably won’t pursue that avenue of exploration any time soon.
Normally I try and sum these issues up with my opinion, but on this one I don’t really know what to say about Shamima Begum. Do we all make stupid decisions when we’re 15 years old? Undoubtedly. Do we all run off to join a terrorist cell in Syria though? No, and the gravity of her actions here shouldn’t be taken lightly.
It does seem like she’s been paying for them for the last eight years though – not least through the death of her three children – so how long does the world have to punish her for? Not long enough at the moment it seems, but not sure if she’ll ever be able to be forgiven at this rate. Unsure if she even deserves to be too.
For more of the same, check out Jihadi Jack’s parents talking about how their over liberal parenting was to blame for their son’s defection to ISIS. Might have had something to do with it yeah.
