A woman who left the United Kingdom to join ISIS at the age of 15 has lost her Court of Appeal challenge over the decision to remove her British citizenship.
Shamima Begum flew to Syria in 2015 with two school friends to join the terror group. While there, she married an ISIS fighter and spent several years living in Raqqa.
Begum then reappeared in al-Hawl, a Syrian refugee camp, in 2019. She made international headlines as an “ISIS bride” after pleading with the UK government to be allowed to return to her home country for the birth of her son.
Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid removed her British citizenship in February that year, and Begum’s newborn son died in a Syrian refugee camp the following month. She told UK media she had two other children prior to that baby, who also died in Syria during infancy.
Is Begum stateless? I thought that the UN “Conventional relating to the status of stateless persons” forbids the removal of citizenship that renders a person stateless. She may have to return to the UK to face criminal charges due to her cooperation with a terrorist group, but I do not think the UK is allowed by the Convention to revoke her citizenship.
She had the opportunity to gain Bangladeshi citizenship until she turned 21, the UK cancelled her citizenship when she was 19 so she was supposedly not stateless at the time they cancelled it. She couldn’t get to Bangladesh in order to apply for citizenship but that is apparently not enough to reinstate her UK citizenship according to this ruling.
@profdc9 yeah, she’s definitely stateless.
Since making people stateless is a violation of international law, the UK used the claim that she could become a citizen of Bangladesh (she’s never been there but it’s her heritage).
The Bangladesh repudiated it, and since only Bangladesh can grant anyone Bangladeshi citizenship, she has no citizenship.