Five years after Shamima Begum expressed her hope of returning to the UK, having been found by a Times journalist in a detention camp in north-east Syria, she is no closer to her wish being fulfilled.
Friday’s ruling by the court of appeal that then home secretary, Sajid Javid’s, decision to strip her of her citizenship was lawful is the latest in a string of legal decisions that have gone against Begum, who was 15 when she left her east London home with two schoolfriends to travel to Islamic State (IS) territory.
As with the earlier decision by the special immigration appeals commission (Siac), the court of appeal acknowledged that Begum, now 24, may have been “influenced and manipulated” and “the likelihood that she was a child victim of others who wished to exploit her for sexual or extremist reasons” but said it was sufficient that Javid had considered such factors, even if he ultimately rejected them.
For similar reasons, the argument by her lawyers that she was de facto stateless at the time of the decision – she had dual UK/Bangladeshi citizenship but could not go to Bangladesh – and so revoking her UK citizenship was unlawful was also rejected.
“Despite knowing that she had nowhere else to go, in all practicality, the secretary of state nonetheless decided to deprive her of her British citizenship on grounds that to do so was conducive to the public good and in the interests of national security,” the unanimous judgment said.
Begum’s lawyers have said they will fight on but the stance by the three court of appeal judges, echoing that of Siac, that Javid had discretion to weigh up the competing factors as he saw fit in the absence of unlawfulness in the decision-making process, does not appear to offer much hope of his ruling being overturned.
Katherine Cornett, head of unlawful detentions at Reprieve, which works on Begum’s case and those of others in camps in Syria, said of the court of appeal’s judgment: “I think what this goes to show is this is a political problem with a political solution.”
The political problem Cornett was referring to extends beyond Begum to other current or former British nationals, also stripped of their citizenship, being held in Kurdish-run camps in north-east Syria for people with alleged links to IS.
The UK’s approach has been largely to wash its hands of the problem they represent. Even if Begum had won, there would have been no immediate prospect of her returning to her country of birth as there are women who retain British citizenship who have been in such camps for years without being repatriated.
Having repatriated just two adults and 15 or so children since the end of the ground war against IS more than four years ago, the UK is an outlier. For instance, among its allies, France has repatriated more than 160 children and more than 50 women, while Germany has taken back almost 100 women and children, with the likes of Canada and Australia also allowing their citizens to return.
In 2021, the US said that as well as being “the best option from a security standpoint, repatriation is also simply the right thing to do”.
There are an estimated 20-25 women or families with British nationality still held in Syrian camps, plus others, such as Begum, who have had their citizenship removed and are challenging the decision in the UK courts.
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Cornett said: “This case does, in a way, shape the public’s perception of what is going on here. We’re talking about a small number of families, mostly kids, and their detention is unlawful – there’s no question about that. They’re being held in horrific conditions. They can be brought home and if there are charges to answer they can answer them.”
While prosecuting crimes committed on a foreign battlefield is not easy, the former director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald KC, previously told MPs and peers that this was something that Britain should be able to do where appropriate. He also criticised the failure to repatriate people who were “victims themselves” and the use of citizenship stripping, a controversial tool which only the UK and Bahrain frequently employ.
Last year, Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that the UK must allow greater repatriation of British nationals held in Syria and also predicted little security risk in allowing the return of Begum. He too has said it will ultimately be a political decision.
For now, neither the courts nor politicians seem to offer a route out, leaving Begum and others in limbo, held without charge or trial in detention camps under armed guard with limited shelter, medical care and clean water.
