On 22 February 2023 Shamima Begum lost her appeal to the Special Immigration Appeals commission (SIAC) against the 2019 decision to remove her British citizenship. Begum was trafficked to Syria in 2015, aged just 15, and for the last four years has been engaged in a bitter battle against the revocation of her citizenship and for the right to return home to Britain. This is the latest in a succession of adverse judgements in her case; in 2021 the Supreme Court upheld the refusal by the Home Secretary to allow her to enter Britain in order to participate in the SIAC proceedings. These rulings illustrate the abject racism of the British state and the intensifying brutality of Britain’s racist immigration system. ANNIE O’CONNOR reports.
Begum was trafficked from East London with two other teenage school girls, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, after being groomed to join the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. Both girls have since been killed in Syria. When Begum was found alive in February 2019 in a Syrian detention camp, while pregnant with her third child, the first two already having died, she appealed to return to Britain on the grounds of safety for her unborn child. Then-Foreign Secretary Sajid Javid moved swiftly to block her return and strip her of British citizenship. The British state claimed that she could access Bangladeshi citizenship, and therefore the revocation was not illegal as it did not leave her completely stateless. This was untrue; Begum does not hold any such citizenship and would not obtain it should she apply. Furthermore, the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister has said that Begum could face the death penalty for terrorism if she travelled to the country. Begum’s third baby died in March 2019.
Following the defeat of ISIS in 2017, some 120,000 people, including 40,000 children, remain in detention in northern Syria. According to Save the Children, in 2020 they included some 60 British children. Speaking at King’s College, London in February 2023, Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that ‘Although no children have been deprived of citizenship, many of their mothers have’.
Shamima Begum is one of the many women with their citizenship revoked by Britain and trapped in dangerous areas of conflict in the Middle East. It is due to plain racism that their safety and wellbeing is of no concern to the British government. Women are at particular risk of violence and sexual exploitation, especially in conditions of war, and have much more limited autonomy both when being trafficked into such conditions, and when they try to leave. Women are also much less likely to carry out terrorist acts, with 89 female terrorist convictions in Britain last year compared to just over 1,000 male. The British state is simultaneously claiming that it is impossible to allow Begum to return to Britain as she is a serious threat to national security, but that there is also insufficient evidence to try her in British courts on charges of terrorism. This is whilst she has had no trial or conviction in Syria either.
Despite its conclusion there was ‘credible suspicion’ that Begum was ‘recruited, transferred and then harboured for the purpose of sexual exploitation’, the SIAC panel maintained that this does not affect the credibility of the Foreign Secretary’s decision to remove her citizenship on grounds that Begum presents ‘a threat to national security’. In 2022 former Security Correspondent for The Times Richard Kerbaj exposed how Begum was smuggled into Syria by a Canadian intelligence agent, Mohammed Al Rasheed, who worked in a collaborative scheme of intelligence sharing with, among other countries, the British state.
The British state has increasingly given government more power, not only to deprive people of their citizenship, but to deport, detain, and deny asylum. As the ‘Instrumentalising Citizenship Global Trends Report’ (March 2022) from the NGO Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion states: ‘legislative developments allowing for easier deprivation of citizenship have often been implemented in the aftermath of events such as terror attacks (eg 9/11 and the 2005 London bombing) or following highly publicised cases of individuals linked to terrorism (such as Abu Hamza and Al-Jedda). This suggests a symbolic purpose […] rather than a basis in purely security concerns.’
The ‘symbolic purpose’ is merely an excuse for the British state to protect its imperialist interests and enact more racist policies to attack and scapegoat migrants. Begum is the latest of these ‘symbols’. The 2014 Immigration Act and 2021 Nationality and Borders Act made it easier for the government to revoke citizenship; citizenship can now be removed without notification. Neither of these Acts, nor Begum’s treatment, have seen any meaningful opposition from the Labour Party. It was in fact in 2002 and 2004 under Labour that the most egregious changes to citizenship deprivation legislation were made in the aftermath of 9/11. It is obvious from her comments that the Tories have not been ‘tough enough’ on immigration that Labour Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper would treat Begum with the same contempt and cruelty.
There has recently been a sharp increase in appeals against revocations of citizenship by Britain, with five reported in 2011, 88 in 2018, and 354 legal challenges against citizenship deprivation orders between January and September 2022. Begum’s case has simply seen the most coverage, and the most vitriol. Begum is clearly in danger and was a victim of child trafficking aided and abetted by Britain. She ended up in the hands of a terrorist group also born from imperialist destabilisation ploys. The refusal to allow Begum to return home, and the insistence of the British state and media on making a cruel example of her, must be exposed for the vicious racism that it is. As the capitalist crisis deepens, intensifying racism and scapegoating of migrants become even more important for the racist imperialist state. We stand in solidarity with everyone under attack from Britain’s racist immigration regime.
