UK Supreme Court ruled against return of woman who joined Islamic State aged 15

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled on Friday against the return to the country of Shamima Begum, a Briton who left the country at the age of 15 to join the jihadist group Islamic State. and settle in what was then his “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq.

The court said in a unanimous decision that Begum’s rights were not violated when he was denied permission to return to the country., where he wants to return to appeal the government’s decision to withdraw his nationality, as reported by the British TV channel BBC.

The 21-year-old claims the decision to revoke her UK citizenship was illegallike that turned her into stateless and exposed it to a risk of death or inhuman and degrading treatment.

“We can not assume (…) that because Begum went to Syria and there is evidence of his alignment with the Islamic State organization, he now represents a permanent threat”, defended his lawyer , David Pannick, before the Supreme Court in November.

Then-British Home Secretary Sajid Javid withdrew his citizenship in 2019 for security reasons, although a UK court ruled last year that you should be able to return to the country for the appeal process. Begum is now in a camp for internally displaced people in Syria.

Begum’s case became paradigm of the future that must be led by those who enlisted as combatants in Syria and their families. Begum, Amira Abase, of the same age, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, left London Gatwick Airport for Turkey in February 2015, after announcing to their parents that they would be spending the day away from home.

Once there, they crossed the border with Syria and reached Raqqa, the capital of the caliphate. The woman was located in February 2019 in a IDP camp after leaving one of the last jihadist-controlled areas in Syria.

In a letter to Home and Foreign Ministers, four MPs from Johnson’s Conservative Party pointed out that UK must not “wash its hands” of the fate of 40 Britons detained in jihadist camps, reported this Friday The telegraph of the day.

In an article published in the same conservative newspaper, one of the signatories, the former Minister of International Development Andrew Mitchell, defended that “If they are considered a danger, they have many reasons to return to the UK, where they can be dealt with by the UK criminal justice system”.

(With information from Europa Press and Reuters)

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