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Shamima Begum (undated photo)
Photo: PA / picture alliance / empics
A woman who joined the IS terrorist group at the age of 15 is not allowed to enter the UK to contest her citizenship revocation.
The Supreme Court decided on Friday in London.
She also failed her application to regain British citizenship.
The ruling is considered to be groundbreaking for similar cases.
Shamima Begum traveled to Syria in 2015 as a student from London to what was then the IS stronghold of Raqqa and married a jihadist.
In 2019, she asked for her return to the UK from a Syrian refugee camp.
She was heavily pregnant then.
She hopes her baby will have a better chance of survival in the UK.
According to their own statements, two of Begum's children had already died.
The then Interior Minister Sajid Javid decided to revoke her citizenship on security grounds.
This may be possible under UK law if the individual does not become stateless.
The government argued that Begum was entitled to citizenship of Bangladesh, the country where her parents were born.
The child died, as their lawyer announced.
The case was particularly controversial in the UK public after the infant died.
Begum was born in Great Britain and was a British citizen from birth - she had never lived in Bangladesh.
According to her lawyers, Begum, who is now 21 years old, has no way of exercising her right to appeal from Syria.
For example, you don't have access to a phone.
"Danger to the general public"
The government argued that their return posed a danger to the general public and that this outweighed their right to challenge their citizenship.
In interviews, Begum had shown no remorse for her decision to join IS - but later put these words into perspective.
The Supreme Court agreed with the government's argument.
Judge in charge, John Reed, said Friday the young woman's appeal should be put on hold pending a trial that would not pose a threat to the public.
"There is no perfect solution"
Judge John Reed
"It's not a perfect solution, especially since it's not clear how long it might take," Reed said.
"But there is no perfect solution to such a dilemma."
The British government approved the ruling.
The decision to withdraw passports from UK citizens will not be taken lightly, said a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The security of the British comes first.
Human rights groups criticized the court's decision and spoke of a "dangerous precedent."
They demanded that Begum should be allowed to enter for a fair trial.
100 men and women from Germany
Begum lives in the Al-Roj prison camp in northeast Syria.
There are thousands of other women and children with ties to IS fighters.
The United Nations recently described the conditions there as horrific and declared that France, Great Britain, China, Russia, the USA and 52 other countries have an obligation under international law to bring their citizens back into the country and to indict them there for war crimes, for example.
Instead, they would be detained in camps similar to the US Guantanamo detention center for years without charge.
Last December, the German government took three German IS supporters out of the Al-Roj camp.
The Federal Republic has not yet flown out male IS supporters who are being held in prisons in northern Syria.
There are currently more than 100 men and women from Germany sitting there, three quarters of them have a German passport.
There are also dozens of children.
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jpz / dpa / AFP / Reuters