Could Shamima Begum return to UK under Labour? Independent review says she should be saved from ‘Britain’s Guantanamo’ camp in Syria
When the UK’s counter-terrorism policy was reviewed, it became clear that Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to the UK.
The ISIS bride and other Britons held in Syrian camps should be repatriated, according to the UK’s Independent Counter-Terrorism Commission.
Begum He now lives in a detention camp in Syria after running away from his home in east London at the age of 15 to join ISIS in 2015.
The independent commission said the current policy of leaving him and others in detention camps in north-east Syria was ‘unsustainable’.
They said the camps risked being seen as ‘Britain’s Guantanamo’, a reference to the US. Guantanamo Bay detention facility used in later years to hold Al Qaeda suspects indefinitely 9/11 Atrocities in 2021.
The controversial comparison is intended to reflect that Begum is being detained without charge or trial. The commission added that conditions in Syrian camps such as Al Hol and Al Roj amounted to ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’.
Members of the body include the former Tory Attorney General Dominic Grieve, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Sir Peter Fahy, former Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police).
Estimates suggest that between 50 and 70 British citizens may be held in Syrian camps, the majority of whom are women and 12 to 30 children.
Begum’s UK citizenship was revoked after she joined ISIS, but she is waging legal campaigns to regain her citizenship and return to the UK.
Shamima Begum currently lives in a detention camp in Syria after fleeing her home in east London in 2015 when she was 15 to join the Islamic State.
Begum’s UK citizenship was revoked after she joined ISIS, but she is waging legal campaigns to regain her citizenship and return to the UK.
In the new report of the Counter-Terrorism Commission, it was stated that allowing people affiliated with the UK to stay in such facilities in Syria was ‘inconsistent’ with human rights obligations.
The statement said: ‘The government should facilitate the voluntary repatriation of British citizens, including those deprived of British citizenship.
‘He should appoint a special envoy to supervise repatriation and inform returnees of the possibility of prosecution.
‘As escapes from the camps are likely to lead to some returns to the UK, an organized program of repatriation, rehabilitation and integration is the best long-term option to manage the risk.’
In September, the Daily Mail revealed how he was living on £100 a week on donations from friends and family while he was trapped in a detention camp in the Syrian desert as he held out hope of returning to the UK.
That month, stateless Begum, 26, was seen storming out of a meeting in the dreary Roj camp for the first time in years.
But former schoolgirl Jihadi is said to be fighting the UK government to regain her citizenship, while trying to keep her spirits up by enjoying small luxuries such as simple beauty treatments paid for by donations from her supporters.
Begum, now 26, was born and raised in Bethnal Green, east London, before traveling to Syria to join ISIS in 2015.
ISIS bride Shamima Begum is seen here while detained in the Roj camp in Syria
She later became a child bride to Dutch Islamic convert Yago Riedijk, who had three children, all of whom died in infancy.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped him of his British citizenship in 2019; this decision was later upheld by the UK Supreme Court.
Begum’s lawyers and supporters argued that she was smuggled to Syria, given the fact that she was a minor when the incident took place and should have been allowed to return to the UK.
He was accompanied by two other female students named Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase; Sultana is believed to have died in an explosion and the fate of Abase is unknown.
The Court of Appeal rejected Begum’s appeal over the removal of her British citizenship last year; However, their lawyers promised to ‘continue the fight’.
Gareth Peirce claimed that ‘indefinite arbitrary detention’ was against international law.
‘She and others, other women and children, are in what is a prison camp, not a refugee camp, and this is acknowledged by the United Kingdom, which has declared to the UN that it accepts the articles of the Geneva Convention are valid,’ he said.
‘No matter how illegal this is, there is no way out. ‘There is no way he can escape from unlawful imprisonment.’
Ms Peirce later said conditions at al-Hol camp, where Ms Begum was staying, had deteriorated, while the Red Cross described the camp as ‘brutal’ and ‘extremely volatile’.
But the Home Office’s Sir James Eadie KC argued that Begum was a threat to national security.
He told judges: ‘The fact that someone has been radicalized and manipulated is not inconsistent with an assessment that that person poses a national security risk.’
