Has anyone watched the 90 minute BBC documentary on Shamima Begum?

The appeal document is available to view at www.judiciary.co.uk

I am certainly not naive but do know a bit about neuroscience and psychology and developing brains, and I’m sure that any one of us at 15 given the right background and circumstances could end up where she has. It’s not naivety but compassion and fairness.
We seem to be going down a path in this country of adapting the law to suit political decisions. God help us when the Human Rights Act is “reformed”.

I read with interest how other countries have repatriated their citizens from Syria and have taken a mature and responsible attitude towards those who are citizens of their country.

The U.K. is the only one who has broken international law (again).

So she's the victim now it seems, or perhaps some posters are really naive.

I've been listening to the podcast, "I am not a monster" and her voice is very flat and lifeless. She doesn't engender sympathy but the more of the podcasts I hear, the more I wonder about what the life she led in Syria (and perhaps before) has done to her mental state. In the last one I've listened to she is fifteen, the husband chosen for her has been sent to prison by ISIS for some reason and she is sent to live with a family she's never met before, who it appears was quite important in the ISIS organisation. She discovers she's pregnant but miscarries later on. She doesn't admit it but I think she will have been aware of the market where Yazidi people were sold as slaves and the places where the heads of people were displayed after their execution. Ordinary Syrians lived in Raqqa, they survived by keeping their heads down and doing as they were told by ISIS. It must have been appalling to live there but people do what they have to to survive. I have no doubt in my mind that she was completely unaware of what she was getting herself into when she flew to Turkey.

I watched the documentary re Shamima Begum and didn't find her a particularly easy person to warm to. However, I think she should not be stripped of her British citizenship.

She was 15 years old, seemed to have had a rather difficult family background, and was therefore vulnerable to grooming and promises of a happy ever after land. Also, there was a Canadian involved who seemingly encouraged and assisted her and the other girls.

Over the last eight years the girls she went out with have been killed, she has herself lost more than one child and has had no family to turn to while in a refugee camp. So in many respects her life over the last five years has been a sort of imprisonment.

Doesn't this judgment mean that a British citizen born of parents who were not from the UK is not being treated in the same way as a British citizen whose parents were from the UK? That seems like second class citizenship to me - and I think that is a sure way to create more feelings of alienation.

There must be several actual terrorists in UK prisons now who have planned or even committed acts of terrorism, but they have not been stripped of their citizenship. Presumably, when they eventually leave prison, if they are British citizens they will not have that citizenship removed.

Germanshepherdsmum

She wasn’t deprived of citizenship because her parents weren’t born here. You know perfectly well why her British citizenship was revoked. She had dual citizenship of Great Britain and Bangladesh at the time her British citizenship was revoked. It’s hardly the fault of the British government if she subsequently allowed her Bangladeshi citizenship to lapse.

Had you bothered to read the Bangladeshi citizenship law Gsm you would be aware that dual citizenship is prohibited by the law
Subject to the provisions of this section if any person is a citizen of Bangladesh under the provisions of this Act, and is at the same time a citizen or national of any other country, he shall unless he makes a declaration according to the laws of that other country renouncing his status as citizen or national thereof, cease to be a citizen of Bangladesh
As SB never renounced her UK citizenship she could not according to Bangladeshi law retain her citizenship of that country.
It is interesting that a supposedly undeveloped country has clear legal guidelines for citizenship whereas UK citizenship rests on the whims of the government.

GSM ''I have no desire to argue with her apparent supporters.''

who on earth here is an 'apparent supporter' - no-one.

She is a British citizen born and bred and it was taken from her- a vulnerable child groomed by terrorists. Are you saying she was not groomed, not vulnerable, not suffering from mental instability and probably disorder?

No-one if a supporter- at all. But she was groomed, she was a minor, she had her born and bred nationality taken away,

and she is much more dangerous there than here.

Thanks Urms.

Thank you from me GSM for taking the time and effort to explain Begum’s situation. It certainly clarified things for me.

I'm late to the party, but I'm another vote for bringing her back to face trial and re-education under strict surveillance. She'd potentially be very useful dissuading other young people from joining IS or other extremist organizations abroad - her experience in of being groomed would be vital to know and understand. She's young, has endured severe trauma and needs lot of compassion and therapy before she can begin to be rehabilitated into society again.

That was not the reason. Of course I am not saying what the Bangladeshi government should do. But she was not left stateless.
I’m pretty fed up with wasting time on this woman so will not post further. She is not worthy of my time and I have no desire to argue with her apparent supporters.

As for "She wasn't deprived of British citizenship because her parents weren't born her" of course she was. If her parents hadn't been born outside the UK she would still be a British citizen.

Germanshepherdsmum

She wasn’t deprived of citizenship because her parents weren’t born here. You know perfectly well why her British citizenship was revoked. She had dual citizenship of Great Britain and Bangladesh at the time her British citizenship was revoked. It’s hardly the fault of the British government if she subsequently allowed her Bangladeshi citizenship to lapse.

Gsm I've posted the Bangladeshi position on this. Are you really saying that the UK has a right to dictate to other countries who they accept as citizens?
They say she never was a Bangladeshi citizen.

She wasn’t deprived of citizenship because her parents weren’t born here. You know perfectly well why her British citizenship was revoked. She had dual citizenship of Great Britain and Bangladesh at the time her British citizenship was revoked. It’s hardly the fault of the British government if she subsequently allowed her Bangladeshi citizenship to lapse.

If the UK can deprive children born here of their citizenship because their parents weren't born here I wonder what rules they will make in the future? Prhaps if your grandparents weren't born here.
Bangladesh says she is not a Bangladeshi citizen because she has never applied to be one This is the act
www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain/opendocpdf.pdf?reldoc=y&docid=543d0d724#:~:text=(5)%20The%20Government%20shall%20not,be%20a%20citizen%20of%20Bangladesh.

The legal position is that the UK did not render her stateless. At the time her British citizenship was revoked she had Bangladeshi citizenship whether she wanted it or not. It is clearly thought by those who have more information than we do that she would be a greater danger to us if she were here rather than elsewhere. We don’t have access to all relevant information, nor should we. In prison (radicalising others, as happens so much in prisons), then tagged and having counselling and support - you have to be joking.

OH was 25 when he found out! The shock was massive- he had never been there!

My OH found out by chance that he was not British- after living all his life in the UK. He arrived at the age of two, at the same time of Windrush, in his case from Apartheid South Africa.

Had he not found out then, by chance- he would still be South African, without knowing it, and could have been returned there if something terrible had happened! He would have known little of this country, and would have felt completely lost there- despite having family there, and it not being such a poor country, compared to Bangladesh.

Anyone who says she was not made stateless has no idea, truly, of the realities of their statement.

Imagine being born and growing up in a country that is so vastly different to the one where your parents were born- that you know very little about, on the other side of the world- then told you are a citizen of that country! I'd say that means even if she was allowed Bangladeshi nationality, how could she be 'returned' there??? I have taught many Bangladeshi children in the past, they knew very little about it, some didn't speak the language, or a weird rural dialect, unable to read or write.

She was born in the UK, and British, just like my children and yours.

But more importantly, we are all much safer for her being here, in prison and later tagged, and getting counselling and support - then there.

She was a Bangladeshi citizen by virtue of her parents’ citizenship at the time the HS acted. That is the relevant time. The UK did not render her stateless.

Germanshepherdsmum

Glorianny is not correct. At the time her British citizenship was revoked she had Bangladeshi citizenship also. The HS did not render her stateless.

The UK may believe so but Bangladesh doesn't. Its laws on citizenship for the children of Bangladeshi parents born in other countries are clear. The child must activate their claim to citizenship before they are 21. They have denied her citizenship. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/20/rights-of-shamima-begums-son-not-affected-says-javid
The UK does not have the right to decide who is a Bangladeshi citizen

Glorianny is not correct. At the time her British citizenship was revoked she had Bangladeshi citizenship also. The HS did not render her stateless.

Glorianny is absolutely correct, the UK Govt has made her stateless which is illegal under the UN Convention.

I don't see whether or not she knew what she was doing is relevant, or whether she is a nice person or not is relevant, she is our citizen and we should take responsibility not try to palm it off on another country.