London: Bangladeshi-origin woman, Shamima Begum who fled the UK as a schoolgirl in 2015 to join Islamic State (IS) terror group in Syria, launched an appeal Tuesday against the government’s move to revoke her citizenship and prevent her from returning here.
Shamima Begum left her home in east London with two other teenagers and travelled to strife-torn Syria when she was 15. She has lived under the rule of the IS group for three years, before being found in a camp run by Kurdish forces in northern Syria in February.
Now aged 20, she is fighting a legal battle to return to the UK and her appeal is being heard at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) this week. High Court judge Elisabeth Laing is expected to consider whether depriving Begum of her UK citizenship will render her stateless.
Under UK law, a person can legally have their citizenship revoked but they cannot be made stateless. The UK government maintains that Shamima Begum has access to Bangladeshi dual citizenship through her parents, even though the Bangladesh government has since denied any such rights.
The lawyer representing her on behalf of her family, Tasnime Akunjee, said the arguments for Begum’s appeal will centre around her being a rape victim of her militant husband. “She was married in an IS ceremony within two weeks of reaching Syria to a 23-year-old fighter. Her context is as a rape victim, or a statutory rape victim,” he said.
AFP