Shamima Begum loses final UK court bid over citizenship

Judges have decided that Shamima Begum may not be able to file a lawsuit against the Supreme Court’s decision to remove her American citizenship.

After traveling to Syria as a student to meet the Islamic State group as a student, the 24-year-old hoped to reverse the government’s decision to withdraw her citizen on national security grounds.

According to the highest court judges in the UK, Ms. Begum was unable to challenge a previous Court of Appeal decision because her case’s basis “do not raise an arguable point of law.”

In the UK constitutional system, Ms Begum had one last chance to challenge the withdrawal of her membership. However, her attorneys informed the BBC that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR ) would handle the case.

Ms Begum, who left Bethnal Green, west London, with two schoolfriends in 2015, was later found in a Syrian migrant station.

Soon after arriving, she wed an Islamist Express warrior, and they had three children. None of them lived.

Sajid Javid, the then-Home Secretary, detained Ms Begum in 2019 on national security grounds, making it impossible for her to reenter the country.

In northeastern Syria, she continues to reside in an armed guard-controlled station.

She lost her appeal to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ( SIAC ) last year against the decision to revoke her citizenship.

After that, three judges in February unanimously rejected her application to reclaim American citizen.

The Supreme Court rejected Ms Begum’s first bet to challenge her original membership treatment in March.

The Supreme Court had the option of granting her case’s hearing instantly.

But, the Supreme Court rejected the application on Wednesday by three judges on the spot.

The facts that she had relied on to support her case’s claim did not legally destroy the determination to deny her UK citizen, according to Lords Reed, Hodge, and Lloyd-Jones.

Among them, questions the propriety of her being unable to contest the prior determination to deny her citizenship.

In a statement, Ms Begum’s legitimate group said it” will take every possible legitimate action” to regain her citizen, including petitioning the ECHR in Strasbourg to hear her situation.

It said that the Supreme Court had “left quality” to the Strasbourg jury.

The justices decided that the German judge should have taken into account Ms Begum’s potential role in the denial of European citizenship in their decision.

Additionally, the Supreme Court justices upheld a previous determination that concluded that the issues had no impact on the decision in terms of UK law.

The fact that American women and children have been held continuously in a Syrian camp for five years without any chance of a trial, according to her attorneys is of the most concern.

” All other places in the position of the UK have intervened and brought their members and children home.”

Reacting to the decision, Maya Foa, chairman of human rights donation Reprieve, said:” Exiling American citizens like Ms Begum is about politics, not the law.

” The previous government’s failed do-nothing strategy may be abandoned. The small number of American families who are in this position should be held accountable by our politicians, so that they can handle their cases here in the country.

Ms Begum is held in Camp Roj in north-east Syria, which holds roughly 3, 000 people, 65 % of whom are children, according to the UN.

The decision, according to Amnesty International UK’s director of refugee and migrant rights, was “deeply concerning” because she was” now exiled in unsafe and unnatural conditions” inside the detention camp.

He added:” Stripping Shamima Begum’s citizenship was deeply inappropriate- she is and has always been British”.

The Home Office stated that it was “unfit to comment further at this day” despite taking note of the Supreme Court’s decision.

Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, the other women Ms Begum traveled to Syria with, are now regarded as useless.

The Shamima Begum Story podcast is available on BBC Sounds and a feature length documentary of the same name is on BBC iPlayer (UK only).