Your blood may be boiling, you may feel the country has gone to the dogs, but taking a step back and looking at the facts of the Shamima Begum case might give you pause for thought.
This is an article exploring the facts of the Shamima Begum case. To keep it short I’m going to assume you’re already broadly familiar with the main arguments. If you’re someone who thinks Begum shouldn’t be allowed back to UK, I highly encourage you to read on as it will provide a perspective you may not have seen before.
Before we go any further, I think it’s important to clarify what is happening to Begum here. She is being allowed back onto UK soil to appeal a decision by the British Government to retract her citizenship. At this stage, she has not even been given her citizenship back, let alone anything else. She will be held in custody for the entire duration of the appeal. If the British government lose the appeal and Begum’s citizenship is reinstated (spoiler alert: it will be) then the next stage will be a trial under UK law. For the entirety of the trial, Begum will remain in custody. The trial will likely be fairly long and Begum will face charges of travelling to Syria to fight, a new offence introduced by the May Government which anti-ISIS fighter Aidan James was convicted of in 2019. As well of this, Begum will face additional charge related to her alleged acts in Syria, which include directly aiding the work of a terrorist group and involvement in crimes against humanity. Needless to say, Shamima Begum “coming back to the UK” does not mean “Shamima Begum gets to come and live in the UK consequence free.” Given a lot of comments I’ve seen on social media, a lot of people have missed this part and think she’ll be coming back on a golden chariot pulled by chained WWII veterans.
I’m going to lay out three arguments, one premised on existing law, one premised on the principle of Governmental consistency and fairness, and one premised on a moral argument about accountability and online radicalisation.
1. British and International Law
The most important piece of legislation underpinning this case is the United Nation’s 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and Articles 7 and 8 of this treaty in particular. The UK is a signatory to this convention and as such it forms part of British law. It makes it legal for the British Government to revoke citizenship where there is a need to for reasons of national security – that argument could be fairly made. However, this is not permitted if it would render someone stateless – if they have no other nationality to fall back on.
The Government’s case relies not on the rejection of this document but on an argument that Begum would not, in fact, be rendered stateless because she can apply for nationality of Bangladesh. Note that Begum has never once stepped foot in Bangladesh, having been born and raised in the UK.
The problem with this argument is that regardless of whether Begum could apply for Bangladeshi citizenship (and it seems unlikely that Bangladesh would approve the citizenship application of someone who travelled to Syria to participate in the Islamic State), the fact is she does not currently have citizenship of Bangladesh. The U.K Government (through the Home Office) cannot, by its own laws, render Begum stateless.
If the U.K. wants to go rogue, and abandon not only its commitment to International law, but also its own law, then what precedent does this set? Not only does it discredit the UK at a delicate post-Brexit time when credibility is essential for building new alliances and relationships, it gives the government free reign to ride roughshod over your rights as a citizen and break its own laws when it sees fit to appeal to a baying crowd. Is this a precedent you’d be comfortable setting?
2. Consistency with the Government’s approach in other cases of deportations of people convicted of a crime
The British Government can, and does, deport foreign criminals from the UK on a regular basis. Note that many of these “Foreign” criminals have spent the vast majority of their lives living and working in the UK, sometimes as members of the armed forces. “Foreign” in this context means people who do not have British citizenship but have citizenship of another sovereign state.
This means that the British Government thinks it’s right that foreign people who come to the UK and are later convicted of a crime should be removed from the UK for the safety of the public. By the same logic, the Government of Syria should be allowed to deport Begum to her country of origin, the UK. If the UK Government refuses to take Begum back, what does this say to the governments of Jamaica, Poland and Pakistan who regularly accept their own citizens in similar cases. How would you react if a Pakistani criminal had to stay in the UK because the Government of Pakistan refused to allow their repatriation?
Also consider that Begum entered Syria illegally, against the wishes of the Syrian Government. Not only do Syria now want to get rid of her, they never wanted her there in the first place. Imagine if a terrorist movement took over part of Britain and began killing British people en masse. Foreign fighters from, say, The US, with absolutely no ties to the UK, came in illegally and participated in this event. After they’d been captured, the US government refused to take them back, insisting they are the UK’s problem now. How would you feel in such a scenario? Would you consider this to be justice? This is the scenario that Syria now faces.
3. Criminal responsibility and extremist grooming
Shamima Begum was 15 years old when she travelled to Syria. She had been in communication with ISIS recruiters since she was at least 14. Like most child victims of internet grooming, she was promised material security and fulfilment by her groomers. Being a child, she lacked the critical reasoning skills to identify these promises as hollow and was lured by what they represented.
When white girls are groomed and subjected to sickening abuse, we don’t blame them for being enticed by the prospects of a stable relationship and access to recreational drugs - we correctly blame the groomers taking advantage of vulnerable young people desperate for a place of safety and acceptance. If we’re to hold Begum responsible for her actions, we’re saying we think that 15 year old children can be fully cognisant of the consequences of the associates they keep and the actions they take. They should also lose their nationality as a result of those decisions. Is this a premise you accept?
Begum was also radicalised by a far right, ultra-conservative extremist ideology popular online, pushed by a foreign state. Given what we know about the state of online discourse, and the tendency of right wing ideologies to push people toward violence, we can see Begum as part of a wider trend, one that has parallels with cases such as the killing of Jo Cox. Perhaps many of the outraged people screaming for Begum’s blood have more in common with her than they realise?
4. Conclusion
I have raised only three arguments here. This is not to touch on, for example, what this case says about race relations in the UK. I want to focus only on the arguments of the citizenship case specifically. No one is arguing that Begum deserves to come back to a party in her honour. No one thinks she should be let off with no criminal trial against her. This isn’t about “being soft on terrorists” – this is about Britain stepping up to its International duties and cleaning up its own mess – dealing with its own citizens who have travelled abroad to wreak havoc in other countries. If you don’t want Britain to take responsibility for its own citizens, what sort of Britain do you want?
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