This is the moment British IS bride Shamima Begum discovers her citizenship has been revoked
This is the moment British jihadi bride Shamima Begum learned her citizenship had been revoked, just days after giving birth to a boy.
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This is the moment British IS bride Shamima Begum discovered her citizenship had been revoked at a displacement camp in Syria.
The teenager, who fled the UK to join the terror group in 2015, had asked the Home Secretary to allow her to return to raise her baby.
Footage published by ITV showed her reading a copy of the Home Office letter her parents received yesterday, The Sun reports.
It stated: “In light of the circumstances of your daughter, the notice of the Home Secretary’s decision has been served of file today (19th February), and the order removing her British citizenship has subsequently been made.”
Begum responded by saying she would like Home Secretary Sajid Javid to “review my case again and have a bit more sympathy for me and understanding, and you know, maybe give me a reason why they see me as a threat to the UK”.
She added: “I’m a bit shocked... It’s a bit unjust on me and my son.”
Her comments come despite openly admitting she doesn’t regret joining IS, that the Manchester Arena bomb attack was “justified” and that she hopes to be reunited with her jihadi husband.
The 19-year-old, who gave birth to her baby boy on Sunday, said she had not been informed of the decision prior to seeing the letter.
She added: “I don’t know what to say. I am not that shocked but I am a bit shocked. It’s a bit upsetting and frustrating.
“It’s kind of heartbreaking to read. My family made it sound like it would be a lot easier for me to come back to the UK when I was speaking to them in Baghouz. It’s kind of hard to swallow.
“I heard that other people are being sent back to Britain so I don’t know why my case is any different to other people, or is it just because I was on the news four years ago?”
She then suggested she might try use her marriage to Dutch jihadi Yago Riedijk as a means of gaining citizenship in Europe.
“Another option I might try with my family is my husband is from Holland and he has family in Holland.
“Maybe I can ask for citizenship in Holland. If he gets sent back to prison in Holland I can just wait for him while he is in prison.”
But the UK could be forced to take in Begum after Bangladesh said they just don’t want her.
The Home Office has claimed she has dual British-Bangladesh nationality due to her parents being from Bangladesh despite her family rejecting the claims.
An official Home Office letter breaking the shock news was delivered to Begum’s “disappointed” family this week.
However, Begum’s brother-in-law broke ranks with her parents and immediate family to say he supported the decision as it was in the best interests “of the country”.
The letter — obtained by ITV News — went on to urge the Begum family to make their daughter aware of the decision while adding she had the right to appeal.
It’s not yet known how the ban will affect her newborn son Jerah — who is half British and half Dutch.
The teenager’s family have said they are “disappointed” by the Home Office’s decision, said their lawyer Tasnime Akunjee.
He tweeted: “We are considering all legal avenues to challenge this decision.”
Begum’s dual nationality — as both her parents are of Bangladeshi origin — reportedly cleared the way for today’s decision.
However, Mr Akunjee, told The Independent the 19-year-old is a sole British national and had “never had a Bangladeshi passport”.
‘WE SHOULD SUPPORT IT’
Meanwhile, Begum’s brother-in-law broke ranks with her parents’ stance and backed the government decision to strip her of her citizenship.
Muhammad Rahman, 36, is married to Shamima’s sister Renu.
He said: “I think we should support it, they (the government) are the people who are in the position to make the decision.
The people who are making these decisions are doing it for the country. They don’t have an easy job, you can’t please everyone.
“The information they have is to the best of their ability and the British people should support it.
“I last spoke to Shamima when she was very young. I think it is upsetting for my sister-in-law and her side of the family.”
Speaking hours after the teenager’s family revealed she will never be able to return to the UK, he added: “I have made comments and it’s upset them. I don’t know Shamima, I last saw her when she was very young.
“It sounds bad but it doesn’t affect my life, it affects her family who I am not that close to. I don’t want to upset my sister-in-law but I don’t really know that side of the family.
“They are extended family, I think it’s often like that.”
‘NOT TAKEN LIGHTLY’
The Home Office has declined to comment on Mr Akunjee’s allegations but said: “We do not make people stateless.”
Earlier, a spokesman said: “In recent days the Home Secretary has clearly stated that his priority is the safety and security of Britain and the people who live here. In order to protect this country, he has the power to deprive someone of their British citizenship where it would not render them stateless.
“We do not comment on individual cases, but any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”
The Conservative chair of the Commons Education Committee, Robert Halfon, who had spoken out against allowing Shamima to return, said in a tweet that Mr Javid had made “absolutely the right decision”.
While Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Sir Ed Davey said: “Membership of a terrorist group is a serious crime, as is encouraging or supporting terrorism. But Shamima Begum should face justice for those crimes in the UK.
“It is not only hard to see Ms Begum and her baby as constituting a serious threat to national security, but it also seems a huge wasted opportunity.
“We can learn lessons as to why a young girl went to Syria in the first place — lessons which could improve Britain’s security by helping us prevent this happening again.”
However, last night one immigration lawyer told the Daily Star she may get back into Britain because of her baby.
BABY CHANCE
Asif Salam, an immigration solicitor from Salam Immigration, said: “The child cannot possibly live without his mother, it’s not in his best interest for the child to be in the UK without the mother.
“So because of the child, the mother could by default get back her nationality or get a limited leave to remain — to be able to live with her child in the UK.”
Earlier, The Sun reported how Begum will be quizzed by cops and could be arrested if she returns to the UK.
Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said the teenager would be spoken to by counter-terror cops if she were to return to the UK from Syria.
She said: “If she does... arrive at our borders somebody in her type of circumstances could expect, of course, to be spoken to and if there is the appropriate necessity, to be potentially arrested and certainly investigated.
“If that results in sufficient evidence for a prosecution then it will result in sufficient evidence for a prosecution. The officers will deal with whatever they are confronted with.”
The former Brit schoolgirl fled from her home in Bethnal Green, East London, as a 15-year-old to join Islamic State in 2015.
She has this week pleaded to be allowed to return home after giving birth to a baby boy.
Ms Begum said in a BBC interview: “I actually do support some British values and I am willing to go back to the UK and settle back again and rehabilitate and that stuff.”
She added: “The poster girl thing was not my choice.”
ARENA OUTRAGE
However she also said the murder of 22 music fans in the Manchester Arena suicide bombing was “fair justification” for air raids on IS in Syria.
Showing no remorse, the 19-year-old dismissed the atrocity at the 2017 Ariana Grande concert as “retaliation.”
She left London in February 2015 with two school friends to follow another classmate to Syria.
She said one friend, Kadiza Sultana, had died in an air strike but the other Bethnal Green girls, Amira Abase and Sharmeena Begum, had stayed with IS in Baghuz.
She said she feared she will never see her husband Riedijk again, whom she still loved “very much”.
Riedijk, 26, a convert to Islam who grew up in a middle-class family home in Arnhem, is suspected by police of being involved in a terrorist plot in the Netherlands.
He was convicted in his absence last year of membership of a terrorist group.
Questions have been raised over whether Britain would be able to prevent Begum’s eventual return to the UK.
Shamima’s parents had been consulting their lawyer about legal action against the government to force it to allow the teenager back into the country.
However, Home Secretary Sajid Javid had warned he “will not hesitate” to prevent the return of Britons who travelled to join IS.
According to the BBC, 12 other British women have arrived at displacement camps in northern Syria in the past week.
This story first appeared on The Sun and has been republished here with permission.
Originally published as This is the moment British IS bride Shamima Begum discovers her citizenship has been revoked
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