UK government vows to 'defend' decision to strip Shamima Begum of citizenship Submitted by Areeb Ullah on Thu, 01/01/2026 - 12:03 The European Court of Human Rights issued a new challenge against the UK's decision to strip Begum of her citizenship amid concerns she was groomed and trafficked into Syria A source told the BBC that British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will prioritise national security and not restore Shamima Begum's UK citizenship (AFP) Off UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has vowed to “robustly defend” the Conservative Party’s decision to revoke the citizenship of a British woman who fled to Syria as a 15-year-old to join the Islamic State (IS) group after a European Court challenged the move. A government source told the BBC that Mahmood will defend the decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) asked the Home Office whether ministers considered Begum was a victim of trafficking. “The home secretary will robustly defend the decision to revoke Shamima Begum’s citizenship, which has been tested and upheld time and again in our domestic courts,” said the source. “The home secretary will always put this country’s national security first.” Last December, the Strasbourg court sent a series of questions to the UK government, asking whether it broke anti-trafficking obligations when it stripped Begum of her citizenship in 2019. The questions include whether the government violated Article 4 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits slavery, servitude and forced labour, as well as a state’s duty to prevent and investigate trafficking. Former Northern Ireland lord chief justice says UK wrong to strip Shamima Begum of citizenship Read More » Then Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped Begum of her citizenship on national security grounds after his office argued that the deprivation was “conducive to the public good” and she posed a threat to the UK. Javid also justified the decision to strip her British citizenship on the grounds that Begum qualified for a Bangladeshi passport because of 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 then reappeared four years later, at an advanced stage of pregnancy, after journalists tracked her down in IS territory. Since then, Begum has tried multiple times, in a series of legal battles with the UK government, to regain her British citizenship, none of which have succeeded, while being held in a prison camp in northern Syria controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The ECHR is now assessing whether the Home Office failed to take into account whether she was a victim of trafficking, and if removing her citizenship could have prevented the government from fulfilling its duty to investigate how she was allowed to leave the UK. 'Catalogue of failures' In their application to the Strasbourg court, Begum’s lawyers said the decision violated Article 4 of the ECHR and that the UK authorities failed to ask four questions before depriving her of her citizenship: whether she had been trafficked to Syria; whether British authorities failed to protect her; 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. Birnberg Peirce, the law firm that is representing Begum, described the ECHR’s intervention as an “unprecedented opportunity” for the UK government to assess whether previous administrations ignored or sidestepped the considerations to be taken into account 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 lawyer Gareth Peirce. Shamima Begum: How citizenship-stripping powers condemn British nationals to 'exile' Read More » “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.” Last year, Declan Morgan, the former lord chief justice of Northern Ireland, said Britain should not have stripped Begum of her 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 (SIAC) found that 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 UK: Shabana Mahmood vows to 'defend' decision to strip Shamima Begum of citizenship News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0