European Court challenges UK on Shamima Begum citizenship revocation Submitted by Areeb Ullah on Mon, 12/29/2025 - 14:29 The ECHR asked the UK to justify stripping Shamima Begum of citizenship amid concerns that she was groomed and trafficked into Syria Begum fled her East London home at the age of 15 to join the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria with two school friends (AFP) Off The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has called on the UK government to explain its decision to strip a British woman of her citizenship after she fled to Syria as a 15-year-old to join the Islamic State (IS) group. In late December, the Strasbourg court sent a series of questions to the British government, asking whether it broke anti-trafficking obligations when it stripped Shamima Begum of her citizenship in 2019. The questions include whether the government violated Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits slavery, servitude, forced labour, and a state’s duty to prevent and investigate trafficking. Former Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped Begum of her citizenship on national security grounds after his office said that the deprivation was “conducive to the public good” and that not doing so posed a threat to the UK. Javid also justified the decision to strip her British citizenship on the grounds that she qualified for a Bangladeshi passport through her parents’ heritage, despite never visiting or living in the South Asian country. Begum made headlines when she fled to Syria in 2015 to join IS with two school friends from her East London home. She reappeared four years later after journalists tracked her down in IS territory. At the time, she was heavily pregnant with a child who later passed away, Since then, Begum has tried and failed multiple times, to return to the UK and restore her citizenship in a series of legal battles with the government. None of those attempts have been successful and she continues to be held in a prison camp in northern Syria controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The ECHR is also assessing whether the Home Office failed to take into account whether she was a victim of trafficking, and if removing her citizenship could have stopped the government’s duty to investigate how she was allowed to leave the UK. Catalogue of failures In her application to the Strasbourg court, Begum’s lawyers said that the UK authorities failed to ask four questions before depriving her of her citizenship, namely: whether she had been trafficked to Syria, whether British authorities failed to protect her, and whether her deprivation of citizenship would undermine any future investigation into potential trafficking, and if trafficking issues were present, whether deprivation could be justified on national-security grounds. Shamima Begum: How citizenship-stripping powers condemn British nationals to 'exile' Read More » Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, which represents Begum, described the ECHR’s intervention as an “unprecedented opportunity” for the UK government to assess whether previous administrations ignored or sidestepped any considerations made to strip her of her citizenship. “Strasbourg’s communication presents an unprecedented opportunity for the UK as well as for Ms Begum - to grapple with the significant considerations raised in her case and ignored, sidestepped or violated up to now by previous UK administrations,” said Gareth Peirce, the lawyer representing Begum. “It is impossible to dispute that a 15-year-old British child was in 2014-15 lured, encouraged, and deceived for the purposes of sexual exploitation to leave home and travel to ISIL-controlled territory for the known purpose of being given, as a child, to an ISIL fighter to propagate children for the Islamic State. “It is equally impossible not to acknowledge the catalogue of failures to protect a child known for weeks beforehand to be at high risk when a close friend had disappeared to Syria in an identical way and via an identical route. “The police failed to warn families, informed the school that its apprehension of risk was overstated, conducted no safeguarding measures, delayed contact with ports and known routes of travel to trigger alarms and prevent [them] reaching the known destination.” The UK Home Office did not respond to Middle East Eye’s request for comment at the time of writing. Earlier this year, Declan Morgan, the former lord chief justice of Ireland, said Britain should not have stripped Begum of her British citizenship. Morgan, who serves as a a supplementary panel member of the UK Supreme Court, made the remarks  at the launch of a new report by the Independent Commission on UK Counter-Terrorism Law, Policy and Practice, which he chairs. In 2020, the Special Immigration Appeals Court found that the conditions in the prison camp where Begum is being arbitrarily detained without trial constituted inhuman and degrading treatment. Two years later, SIAC also found that the state failed to protect her but noted that its “hands were tied” as a result of the Supreme Court’s limiting the immigration court’s ability to take into consideration the merits of Begum’s case. The ECHR’s intervention comes as activists ramp up their campaigning against the UK’s growing use of citizenship-stripping powers. A final judgement is expected at a later date, following submissions from the UK government and Begum’s lawyers. Human Rights News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0