On 16th July, Thursday, Shamima Begum won her legal battle to be allowed to return home to contest the government's decision to strip her off her British citizenship.
The 20-year-old Bethnal Green schoolgirl had fled London in 2015 to join the Islamic State in Syria and in 2019, Sajid Javid, the then Home Secretary had decided to strip her off her citizenship on security grounds. Now, the court of appeal has said that she had been denied a fair hearing because she could not make her case from the camp.
The government therefore, has to allow the 20-year-old to appear in court in London despite insisting that it would not assist removing her from Syria.
Begum had initially argued that the government's decision to revoke her citizenship was unlawful because it left her stateless. Under international law, it is only legal to revoke someone's citizenship if an individual is entitled to citizenship of another country. The UK government had initially argued that she was entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship owing to her parents’ South Asian heritage. However, Bangladesh has refused any and all grounds of citizenship for Begum.
However, in February, a tribunal ruled that the decision to remove her citizenship was lawful because she was "a citizen of Bangladesh by descent" at the time.
Daniel Furner, Ms Begum's solicitor, in a statement to the BBC said,
"Ms Begum has never had a fair opportunity to give her side of the story. She is not afraid of facing British justice, she welcomes it. But the stripping of her citizenship without a chance to clear her name is not justice, it is the opposite."
At a hearing at the Court of Appeal last month, her lawyer also argued that Ms Begum, who remains in the camp in northern Syria, could not effectively challenge the decision while she was barred from returning to the UK.
