The United Kingdom must not authorize the return of Shamima Begum, a 20-year-old 'Isis bride', who fled London at 15 with two peers in 2015 to join the Caliphate militiamen in Syria before being captured and ending up in a camp refugees from the area.
This
was established today by the Supreme Court of London overturning a previous verdict
issued in July on appeal that had given reason to the appeal lodged by her and her family against the revocation of British citizenship decided by authority against her in February 2019 by Sajid Javid, then Minister of the Interior in Theresa May's government.
Growing up in Bethnal Green, east London, Shamima Begum
had reappeared in 2019 from the refugee camp where reporters had tracked her down
(and where she later gave birth to a starving baby according to some sources) to beg in interviews. to various British media the possibility of returning: interviews in which she had told of having married a militiaman - a Dutch convert -, of having witnessed the horrors of war and the oppressions of the so-called Islamic State, of having lost two other children due to malnutrition ;
but she had also initially denied having "regrets", only to later correct the shot and declare herself "repentant."
The May government, followed on the same line by the current one of Boris Johnson, had for its part insisted on the denial of his citizenship,
invoking reasons of national security
and hypothesizing that Shamima could ask alternatively for the parents' origins the passport of Bangladesh (country in which, moreover, he never lived and who made it known that he had no intention of 'adopting it').
In July, the Court of Appeal then wronged the executive, defending
retention of citizenship as a fundamental right
for a British-born, whatever she did.
But today the Supreme Court unanimously overturned that sentence, accepting the counter-appeal presented by the Home Office, the Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom.
In the device, the Judge Rapporteur, Lord Robert John Reed, called the appeal verdict "wrong", underlining that the assessment of national security risks is the responsibility of the "Minister of the Interior, who is accountable for his responsibilities to the Elected Parliament ".
Reed admitted that "deprivation of citizenship" could have "a profound effect on the life" of the young woman.
But he added that
"the serious consequences" of the matter
in terms of "public interest"
must also be taken into account
and that "it would be irresponsible for the Court to accept (Shamima's) appeal without regard to the interests of national security".
