Shamima Begum, Who Joined ISIS in Syria, Seeks Return to U.Ok.

LONDON – Lawyers for Shamima Begum, a London school girl who traveled to Syria in 2015 to join the Islamic State, on Tuesday called on the UK Supreme Court to allow her to return to her home country to strengthen her defense. The court should not assume they posed a serious threat.

A decision in the case, which was hotly debated in the UK after the government said Ms. Begum would be stripped of her British citizenship, could render her stateless or pave the way for a landmark trial in the UK.

Ms. Begum wants to return to the UK to challenge a decision made by then Prime Minister Theresa May last year to revoke her citizenship on the grounds that it posed a threat to national security.

David Pannick, one of Ms. Begum’s lawyers, argued on the last day of a two-day hearing in the UK Supreme Court that Ms. Begum had found it difficult to communicate with her lawyers from the Syrian camp where she is detained. and that only in Britain could she properly build her defense.

“It cannot be assumed that because Ms. Begum went to Syria to join ISIL, she posed a persistent threat,” added Pannick, using an acronym for Islamic State.

The Supreme Court decision is expected at a later date.

The case of Ms. Begum highlights the challenges faced by several European governments, including the UK, France and Germany, who refuse to repatriate citizens who have traveled to Islamic state territories, many of whom are currently under by Kurdish forces in northeast Syria difficult conditions.

Ms. Begum, now 21, boarded a flight from London to Turkey with two friends in 2015 and then traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State. She later married a Dutch fighter there and gave birth to three children, all of whom have since died. One of these friends, Kadiza Sultana, was reportedly killed in an air strike in Syria in 2016. The fate of the other, Amira Abase, is unknown.

When the Islamic State lost control of its last territories in early 2019, a British journalist found Ms. Begum in the al-Hol detention center in February. She asked the authorities to “reassess my case with a little mercy in the heart,” but Sajid Javid, the British Home Secretary at the time, revoked Ms. Begum’s citizenship.

The ensuing legal battle, including this week’s Supreme Court hearing, has made Ms. Begum’s case one of the most emblematic among European fighters or militants who have joined the Islamic State.

Rights groups and lawyers representing Ms. Begum have raised concerns that if she were stripped of her British citizenship, she could become stateless. Ms. Begum, who was born in the UK and raised in east London, appealed the decision last year. However, a special court ruled that this was lawful as she had the right to become a citizen of Bangladesh through her mother, who is a citizen of that country.

Under UK law, the Home Secretary can revoke the citizenship of a single nationality holder if there is “reasonable grounds” to believe that he or she can acquire citizenship elsewhere. However, the Bangladeshi authorities have stated that they do not intend to grant citizenship to Ms. Begum.

In July the UK Court of Appeals ruled that Ms. Begum could only be granted a “fair and effective appeal” on her citizenship if she could return to her home country. The UK government appealed this decision and Ms. Begum’s case was taken up by the Supreme Court.

Ms. Begum has challenged the UK decisions to revoke her citizenship and deny her permission to return to her home country.

James Eadie, a lawyer who represented the UK government at the Supreme Court hearing, argued Monday that Ms. Begum experienced radicalization and “desensitization to violence” during her years with the terrorist group and that she is still “a real and…” current threat to national security. “

Mr. Pannick countered that Ms. Begum had a “statutory right to a meaningful appeal” which, he argued, was “not subject to any relevant national safety exception”.

Tom Hickman, another lawyer who worked for Ms. Begum this week, argued Tuesday that the decision to strip Ms. Begum of her citizenship could violate the European Convention on Human Rights, which the UK is a signatory.

Ms. Begum is one of two dozen British adults currently detained in Syria and Iraq with 35 children. This comes from figures compiled by the Egmont Institute, a Brussels-based research group. In total, more than 400 Europeans remain imprisoned there who are suspected of being militant, of whom around 200 are French and around 150 are German.

Most live in the dirty al-Hol camp where Ms. Begum was previously detained and where security and humanitarian access have deteriorated after Turkish forces invaded northern Syria last autumn.

There were several reports of violence among residents of al-Hol as well as attempts by radicalized women to enforce Islamic state-style laws in the camp. “Women who now reject militancy are forced to live mixed with committed jihadists under conditions that allow abuse and intimidation,” wrote the International Crisis Group in January, describing conditions in the camp as “miserable”.

Ms. Begum is currently in al-Roj, a smaller camp in northeast Syria. At the beginning of this year, Kurdish armed forces brought dozens of foreign women and children from al-Hol there to increase security and improve the living conditions of the detainees.

According to officials there, Kurdish armed forces have banned the black clothing and face covering of members of the Islamic State in al-Roj. According to the International Crisis Group, around 4,000 people remain in the camp, compared with tens of thousands in al-Hol.

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