{"id":13961,"date":"2019-02-19T16:45:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T21:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=13961"},"modified":"2019-02-19T16:46:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T21:46:47","slug":"shamima-begum-is-teenager-to-lose-uk-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/02\/19\/shamima-begum-is-teenager-to-lose-uk-citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"Shamima Begum: IS teenager to lose UK citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Shamima Begum, who joined the Islamic State group in Syria aged 15, is to lose her UK citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>Whitehall sources said it was possible to strip the 19-year-old of British nationality as she was eligible for citizenship of another country.<\/p>\n<p>Her\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link-external\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MohammedAkunjee\/status\/1097929209845112832\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">family&#8217;s lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, said they were &#8220;disappointed&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0with the decision and were considering &#8220;all legal avenues&#8221; to challenge it.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Begum, who left east London in 2015, had said she wanted to return home.<\/p>\n<p>She was found in a Syrian refugee camp last week after reportedly leaving Baghuz, IS&#8217;s last stronghold, and gave birth to a son at the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>In an\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-47276572\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">interview with the BBC on Monday,<\/a>\u00a0Ms Begum said she never sought to be an IS &#8220;poster girl&#8221; following her journey to Syria with two school friends from Bethnal Green, and wished to raise her son in the UK.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"story-body__link-external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/2019-02-19\/shamima-begum-has-uk-citizenship-revoked-by-british-government-itv-news-learns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ITV News said<\/a>\u00a0Ms Begum&#8217;s mother had received a letter from the Home Office on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The letter said Home Secretary Sajid Javid had taken the decision to remove her daughter&#8217;s British citizenship and the order to do so had subsequently been made.<\/p>\n<p>It asked her mother to let Ms Begum know of the decision and inform her she has a right to appeal.<\/p>\n<p>Under the\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link-external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/1981\/61\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1981 British Nationality Act<\/a>, a person can be deprived of their citizenship if the home secretary is satisfied it would be &#8220;conducive to the public good&#8221; and they would not become stateless as a result.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Begum said she travelled to Syria with her sister&#8217;s UK passport but it was taken from her when she crossed the border.<\/p>\n<p>She is believed to be of Bangladeshi heritage but when asked by the BBC, she said did not have a Bangladesh passport and had never been to the country.<\/p>\n<p>A Home Office spokesman said while he could not discuss individual cases, &#8220;we don&#8217;t leave people stateless&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Javid told MPs he would not &#8220;hesitate to prevent&#8221; the return of Britons who travelled to Syria to join IS.<\/p>\n<p>He said more than 100 dual nationals have already lost their UK citizenship after travelling in support of terrorist groups.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, two British men, accused of being members of an IS cell dubbed &#8220;The Beatles&#8221;\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-43601925\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">were stripped of their citizenship<\/a>\u00a0after being captured in Syria.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Willing to rehabilitate&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>Ms Begum has said she does not regret travelling to Syria and was partly inspired by videos of fighters beheading hostages, as well as by videos showing &#8220;the good life&#8221; under IS.<\/p>\n<p>However, she said she did not agree with everything the group had done.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I actually do support some British values and I am willing to go back to the UK and settle back again and rehabilitate and that stuff,&#8221; she told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>She admitted she was &#8220;shocked&#8221; by the\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-40014966\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2017 Manchester Arena attack<\/a>, which killed 22 people and was claimed by IS.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I do feel that is wrong. Innocent people did get killed,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>But she also compared the attack to military assaults on Syria, saying: &#8220;It&#8217;s one thing to kill a soldier, it&#8217;s fine, it&#8217;s self-defence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But to kill people like women and children just like the women and children in Baghuz who are being killed right now unjustly by the bombings &#8211; it&#8217;s a two-way thing really because women and children are being killed back in the Islamic State right now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s kind of retaliation. Their justification was that it was retaliation so I thought, okay, that is a fair justification.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Robbie Potter, who was seriously injured in the attack while he waited for his children in the foyer of Manchester Arena, said he felt &#8220;angry&#8221; and sickened by Ms Begum&#8217;s comments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People have lost their kids, their family members. How must they feel seeing this, that we would even consider bringing someone else back?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let her come and meet the victims and people who lost their kids. If that&#8217;s the way she wants it. Would she go in a room with them and see what their justification is?&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/EA59\/production\/_105639995_mediaitem105639994.jpg\" alt=\"Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum\" width=\"976\" height=\"400\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum (l-r) in photos issued by police<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ms Begum left the UK with two other school friends, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase in February 2015. Ms Sultana is thought to have died when a house was blown up, and the fate of Ms Abase is unknown.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Begum gave birth to a baby boy last weekend, having previously lost two children.<\/p>\n<p>Her husband, a Dutch convert to Islam, is thought to have surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters about two weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-47299907\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Shamima Begum, who joined the Islamic State group in Syria aged 15, is to lose her UK citizenship. Whitehall sources said it was possible to strip the 19-year-old of British nationality as she was eligible <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/02\/19\/shamima-begum-is-teenager-to-lose-uk-citizenship\/\" title=\"Shamima Begum: IS teenager to lose UK citizenship\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,4],"tags":[6003,22,6002,1097,5352],"class_list":{"0":"post-13961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-uk","10":"tag-bethnal-green","11":"tag-islamic-state","12":"tag-shamima-begum","13":"tag-syria","14":"tag-uk-citizenship","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13964,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13961\/revisions\/13964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}