NEWS DESK
LONDON: A London court will today (Monday) will review an appeal by Shamima Begum, a young girl who lost her British citizenship after she joined the banned Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, to restore her British citizenship.
Begum has appealed against the revocation of her UK citizenship after she joined the banned outfit.
Begum had fled her London home as a 15-year-old with other two girls in 2015, ending up in Syria. Later marrying one of IS fighters. The woman was later “found” by British journalists in a Syrian camp in February 2019.
Her lawyers have pleaded that she was a “victim of trafficking”. Begum’s apparent lack of remorse in initial interviews caused outrage.
Dubbed as the “IS bride”, she was stripped of her British citizenship, which left her stranded and stateless in the Kurdish-run Roj camp in Syria.
The hearing at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) follows a last year’s decision by the Supreme Court to refuse her permission to return to the UK to fight the citizenship case against the Home Office.
‘Trafficked by Canadian spy’
Tasnime Akunjee, the Begum family lawyer, said that the hearing would revolve around whether she was “considered a victim of trafficking”, reported AFP.
Richard Kerbaj in his book published earlier this year, alleged that Begum, who is now 23, and her friends, were taken into Syria by a Syrian man who was an informant of the Canadian security services.
Allegedly, Mohammed Al-Rashed was in charge of the Turkish side of a large human-smuggling IS network.
It was fairly well settled that a Canadian asset of the Canadian security forces transported Begum and her friends across borders, said Akunjee.
Despite her initial remarks, Begum has since expressed remorse for her past actions and shown sympathy for the IS victims.
Last year, she said that after arriving in Syria, she quickly realized that the IS was “trapping people” to increase the organization’s numbers so they may “look good for the (propaganda) videos”.
According to estimates, some 900 people travelled from Britain to Syria and Iraq to join the militant group. The UK stripped off the citizenship of around 150 of those who travelled to Syria and Iraq.
According to the human rights group, Reprieve, 20-25 British families, including 36 children, were still living in camps in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria, where suspected relatives of IS fighters have been held, according to the AFP.
Like Britain, other European nations have also been facing issues in handling the return of their own nationals. – APP/AFP
