Shamima Begum loses appeal against removal of British citizenship

YES!!!  Punches air! Does a silly dance round the kitchen.  Because so many people I know feared that her lawyer,  paid by the shadowy entities with deep pockets would have convinced our  ‘liberal’ left-leaning naive Judges that she was a poor little innocent child misled and trafficked.  

From the Guardian. 

Shamima Begum, who left Britain as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State (IS), has lost an appeal against the decision to remove her British citizenship.

At a five-day hearing in November, Begum, who was 15 when she left her home in east London with two school friends in 2015 to travel to Syria, challenged the decision taken by the then-home secretary, Sajid Javid, in 2019.

On Wednesday, the special immigration appeals commission (Siac) decided the revocation of her citizenship, which occurred after she was discovered in a refugee camp in north-east Syria in 2019, was lawful.

The Siac judges had no power to determine whether she could return to the UK, even if they found in her favour, and there are several British women detained in refugee camps in Syria who retain British citizenship but have not been repatriated.

However, the decision against her makes the prospect of Begum being allowed to return to the UK even more remote.

More from The Telegraph

Mr Justice Jay, sitting at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), rejected Ms Begum’s legal challenge. The judge found that there was a “credible suspicion” Ms Begum was a victim of trafficking to Syria.

“The motive of bringing her to Syria was sexual exploitation for which, as a child, she could not give valid consent,” he said during a brief hearing on Wednesday.  She was under 16 so that is indeed true had she ‘married’ her husband under a nikah in England. And I agree that girls that young should be protected in law from sexual exploitation.  After all I deplore that girls of the same age being trafficked after having been drugged by the Muslim rape gangs were dismissed by the police as ‘child prostitutes making a life-style choice’ .  But Miss Begum was over the age of 10, therefore criminally responsible for joining with a terrorist organisation, responsible for terrible crimes both in the Middle east and elsewhere.  I condemn those of  her actions that were criminal verging on treason. 

However, the commission concluded the Home Secretary was not formally required to consider whether Ms Begum was a victim of trafficking when he removed her citizenship. Ultimately, however, the commission accepted that the Home Secretary’s conclusion was “an integral part of the overall national security assessment carried out by the Security Service” and therefore not a matter for the court.

The judge said: “If asked to evaluate all the circumstances of Ms Begum’s case, reasonable people with knowledge of all the relevant evidence will differ, in particular in relation to the issue of the extent to which her travel to Syria was voluntary and the weight to be given to that factor in the context of all others. Likewise, reasonable people will differ as to the threat she posed in February 2019 to the national security of the United Kingdom, and as to how that threat should be balanced against all countervailing considerations.

“However, under our constitutional settlement, these sensitive issues are for the Secretary of State to evaluate and not for the commission.”

In the full written judgment, he added: “The state may have failed in its duties to Ms Begum before she travelled to Syria, but she is now well beyond the scope of its protections.”

My favourite comment so far, while comments are allowed

Anyone who regards the murder of teenage girls at the Manchester Arena bombing as “justified” should never be allowed into this country.

The youngest girl killed that night was aged 8. Never forget that. Justified because she was listening to music and watching dancing. 

Update

Speaking outside court, Daniel Furner and Gareth Peirce, Ms Begum’s lawyers, described the ruling as “extraordinary” and vowed that the legal fight was “nowhere near over”.  Ah, yes, Mrs  Peirce, nee Jean Margaret Webb who has never met an anti-British terrorist she didn’t love.  Neither Ms Begum, nor Ms Begum’s family were allowed to know the outcome of the case until this morning, Mr Furner said.