A Question of Citizenship: Shamima Begum
Oh fuck… are we… are we really doing this? It seems like a terrible idea but I guess we’re going to talk about Shamima Begum.
Yep… really, starting off with a bath-time story, followed by a rat creation myth and then the slightly more controversial issue of cancel culture, lets squander any good will or comedic base that I have and discuss the subject of removing citizenship from a former member of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS).
To provide an insultingly brief backstory, in 2015, 15 year old Shamima Begum travelled to Raqqa with two other schoolgirls to join IS. During her 3 years under IS, Shamima married a Dutch IS recruit and lost three children before she was found in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019. The Home Office then declared her a risk to national security and removed Ms Begum’s citizenship. What followed was an outbreak of public debate surrounding the morality and legality of allowing former IS members to return to their home countries.
However, in recent developments, the British public has generally had the following reaction:
Now, the proceedings of this case have been questionable, and that is being generous to say the least. (Please note that the majority of these sources come from BBC reports and documents which will be appropriately linked to)
Under international law, the UK cannot leave citizens stateless. The Home Office got around this by claiming that Ms. Begum was a citizen of Bangladesh by descent. Bangladesh then quickly stated that she did not have citizenship and she would not be allowed in the country.
This then began a long appeal case and we fast forward to July 2020, where the Court of Appeal ruled that Shamima Begum had been denied a fair trial because she could not make her case from a refugee camp because… yanno… of course she can’t.
It should also be noted that the draft document sent by the Court of Appeal, outlining their decisions on the case, had been leaked to the Sun newspaper. Which Ms Begum’s lawyers argued allowed ministers a “first strike” in defining the agenda over the proceedings.
Despite the ruling of the Court of Appeal, the case went before the Supreme Court without Shamima Begum being allowed to return to the UK for her trial; she could also not speak to her lawyers or participate in the hearing, even by video.
President of the Supreme Court, Lord Reed, announced the courts verdict on the 26th February 2021. In a statement, he claimed that the Court of Appeal was mistaken in its belief that “her right to a fair hearing must prevail.”
Now… this may seem a reasonable idea; we cannot jeopardise security and allow a possible terrorist threat. But let’s unpack that statement. The highest court in Britain believes that a fair trial is not always essential. That is not twisting quotes. It’s right there… the belief that sometimes the cost of a fair trial is just too high.
Now, to be fair, this does have an appeal. Why should we invite potential harm for the sake of someone who actively threatened our country? This is not helped by the fact that in Ms. Begum’s interviews, she did not show significant remorse for her actions.
In an interview in February 2019, she claimed of IS that “I don’t actually agree with everything they’ve done” and that “I do support some British values and I am willing to go back to the UK and settle back again and rehabilitate and that stuff.” Which does not inspire confidence that she is completely reformed or remorseful for her actions. She also defended some terrorist actions, claiming “women and children are being killed back in the Islamic State right now… it’s a kind of retaliation.” Her motive for seeking forgiveness and re-entry to the UK was also driven by her desire to raise her children safely, saying “losing my children the way I lost them, I don’t want to lose this baby as well and this is really not a place to raise children.” Perhaps the hardest pill to swallow is her statement that she would have let her late son become an IS fighter. She, however, now desires her third child to “be British.”
Naturally, her attitude does raise legitimate concern: it is highly possible that she could spread IS ideology further and encourage more to follow in her footsteps. However, it was never going to be the case that she would be allowed to walk freely down to Primark upon her return to the UK. She did commit crimes. She did join a terrorist organisation. And yes, there does need to be consequences. Ms Begum herself accepted that she would face jail time upon her return. We have a legal system in place for this and while we cannot hold people indefinitely, we can try to reform. No, it is not without risk, but just because something is hard does not make it impossible, and just because something is easier and less risky… does not make it right.
Perhaps the most heartless element of the government’s response to this whole affair is summed up by Sir James Eadie who asks: “Can it be right that a person who has involved themselves in terrorism, and is now abroad and subject to restrictions that affect their ability to participate in proceedings, is able to rely on those self-created impediments to insist on return to the jurisdiction to enable them to participate now in such proceedings?”
Or, to put simply, she made a decision. When she joined IS, it set her down a path to a Syrian refugee camp and it is this which is restricting her from having a fair trial… not the government.
To reiterate a fact… she was 15. A child. This stance expects us to believe one of two facts, either teenagers should be held equally as accountable as adults (when this precedent exists nowhere else in UK law) or that it is the fault of radicalised youths that they have failed to escape IS who, historically, do not have the same free month trial scheme as a fucking gym membership.
Radicalised youths do not fail their country… their country fails them.
Unless you can argue that the UK is a utopia for all creeds and nationalities, that no injustices exist or, as a random example, has never participated in illegal wars, it is naïve to argue that radicalisation is not ripe for spreading.
Ms. Begum’s lawyer also claims that she was groomed into joining IS. After all, you would presume it would be difficult for a 15 year old to find IS on their own from London… and if it is that easy, someone better tell the military to hit up the IS shitposting Facebook page.
We cannot say for certain if she was groomed into joining IS or if her claim that she is currently at risk of beheading/hanging is verifiable. But do you know where that could be verified? A fucking trial. And we can have that discussion when we’re not at risk of sentencing someone to death.
Now, of course, there is the risk that if we did bring her to the UK for trial and it was deemed that she is a genuine threat and she did exaggerate her circumstances, then we may well be stuck with a dangerous terrorist on UK soil who we invited over. No one should minimise that risk. But no one should minimise the consequences of denying fair trials, or abandoning families in refugee camps, or blaming children for being groomed into extremist groups. It is a very dark path to go down, and the farcical hypocrisy of this whole scenario will breed more ammunition for radicalisation than a few desperate refugees asking to come home ever could.
If we cannot rely on our current safeguarding measures to prevent the radicalisation of youths and the vulnerable, if we cannot rely on our courts to determine fault and innocence, if we cannot rely on our security services to keep an eye on possible risks when we allow a victim of radicalisation back, then it’s a sign there’s a problem with those systems, not an excuse to be lazy and callous with people’s lives.
The effect of this type of reckless behaviour is no more evident than in what happened to an innocent bystander of this whole fiasco. As mentioned a few paragraphs back, a major factor in Shamima Begum’s desire to return was the wellbeing of her only surviving child. The third child of Ms. Begum was barely weeks old when her citizenship was revoked. Pleas from her family in the UK to the Home Office to bring the child to the UK fell on deaf ears, the family received a statement simply referring them to another department. The child died of breathing complications in March 2019.
Now, this is not to blame the death of the child solely on the Home Office. There are understandably difficulties in bringing a child from a refugee camp safely, and the need for rapid action could not have been known… But for no effort to have been extended at all to save an innocent baby’s life is fucking disgraceful.
Even if you do think Shamima Begum should not have been allowed citizenship and presented a creditable threat, which is a more than understandable position, the response of the government throughout this very complex and delicate issue… has been a bloody shambles. It also sets a very dangerous precedent. In November 2020, two other women began similar appeals, and they and their seven children are stranded in Syrian camps. At this current point in time, it is likely that Shamima Begum’s case will set a precedent for how their appeals proceed. In which, to remind you, a child has died and the court decided that Britain did not need to enforce fair and just trials.
At this point, we need to ask ourselves at what cost we are willing to set our safety. If you personally have evaluated this cost to be fair and fine then that is more than reasonable, if that is your informed opinion. But I, for one, think that this price is too fucking high.
So please look into this. Do some research. Make up your mind. And if you are an amazingly motivated person, try and do something about this.
Because I started writing this the day the story was reported, and when continuing to research this just a few days after, it had disappeared from BBC news’ front page, and the debate has been minimal to silent.
As a country we just admitted that we don’t need fair trials to make judgements that can (and has) claimed lives. And this deserves frank and open discussions which have not taken place.
