Begum hoped for a more lenient treatment

Monday 17th February 2020 10:31 EST
 
 

Shamima Begum, the Bethnal Green schoolgirl who fled the UK in 2015 to join the ISIS has said her “whole world fell apart” when she discovered that she had been stripped of her British citizenship.

In an interview after losing the appeal against the decision to strip her British citizenship, the 20-year-old said she had hoped for a more lenient treatment. In a statement to the ABC News, she said,

“I kind of saw it coming because I did do my research just before I came out. I thought I would be a bit different because I had not done anything wrong before I came to Isis.

“When my citizenship got rejected, I felt like my whole world fell apart right in front of me. You know, especially the way I was told. I wasn’t even told by a government official. I had to be told by journalists.”

Earlier this month, she had lost an appeal in a British court against revocation of her British citizenship which was done last year by the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid. Although Begum had only ever lived in the UK before travelling to Syria to join Islamic State, the court held that she was eligible to apply for citizenship of Bangladesh, the birth country of her parents.

Begum is reportedly living at al-Roj camp in Kurdish-run north-east Syria, where she was living in a relatively spacious heated tent with Kimberly Polman, a US-Canadian in her 40s who is waiting to hear whether she will be allowed to return to either country.


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