Home secretary to ‘robustly defend’ citizenship decision
The home secretary will “robustly defend” the decision to strip Shamima Begum of her British citizenship as European judges review the move, according to a government source.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) called for an investigation but a government source said the decision had already been upheld by UK courts.
Ms Begum was 15 when she left east London for the Middle East, into territory held by the Islamic State group, and married a fighter there.
The woman, now 26, was later stripped of her British citizenship on the grounds that she posed a threat to national security, but her lawyers said this did not take into account whether she was a victim of grooming and human trafficking.
The ECHR asked the Home Office whether ministers at the time considered whether Begum was a victim and whether the UK had obligations towards her.
But a government source said: “The home secretary will strongly defend the decision to revoke Shamima Begum’s citizenship, which has been repeatedly tested and upheld in our local courts.
“The interior minister will always put the national security of this country first.”
A document published by the ECHR earlier this month states that Ms Begum objected to the decision to revoke her British citizenship under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits slavery and forced labour.
The case was filed in December 2024 after the UK Supreme Court rejected the chance to appeal the decision.
The four questions put to the Home Office by the judges in Strasbourg include: “Did the Secretary of State have a positive obligation under Article 4 of the Convention to consider whether the applicant was a victim of trafficking and whether any duties or obligations arose on him before deciding to deprive the applicant of his nationality?”
Ms Begum was born in the UK to parents of Bangladeshi descent and was 15 when she left Bethnal Green, east London, with two school friends in 2015 to support the Islamic State group.
Shortly after arriving, she married an Islamic State fighter and had three children, none of whom survived.
He was later found in a refugee camp in Syria, and in February 2020 a court ruled that revoking his British citizenship would not make him stateless because he was a “Bangladeshi citizen by descent”.
A number of appeals were lodged, culminating in the decision not to allow him to appeal in the High Court.
Lawyer Gareth Pierce, representing Ms Begum, said it was “impossible to dispute” that a 15-year-old boy was “tricked, encouraged and deceived into leaving home and traveling to ISIS-controlled territory for the purpose of sexual exploitation”.
He added: “It is equally impossible not to accept the catalog of failures to protect a child who was known weeks in advance to be at high risk when a close friend disappeared in the same way and by the same route into Syria.
“It has long been recognized that the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, in taking a hasty decision to strip Ms Begum of her citizenship in 2019, completely disregarded the care and dealing of a London schoolchild and the state’s duties arising therefrom.”
The Conservatives said Ms Begum should not be allowed to return to the UK “under any circumstances”.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said Ms Begum had “chosen to support violent Islamic extremists”.
He added: “He has no place in the UK and our High Court has ruled that it is lawful to strip him of his citizenship.
“It is deeply worrying that the European Court of Human Rights is now trying to use the ECHR to get the UK to take it back.”
