Islamic State defector Shamima Begum will be allowed to return to the United Kingdom to appeal the government’s decision to strip her of her British citizenship.
Begum, who is said to have “carr[ied] a Kalashnikov rifle and earned a reputation as a strict ‘enforcer’ of [the Islamic State’s] laws, such as dress codes for women” and to have “literally stitch[ed] the vests” of suicide bombers in the erstwhile caliphate, should receive leave to enter the United Kingdom because she was not able to receive a “fair hearing” from Syria, according to the Court of Appeal.
The Home Office said the ruling was “very disappointing” and that it would “apply for permission to appeal” against it — but it does not have very good form on such things, having failed for many years to deport grooming gang rapists it stripped of citizenship and promised to remove while David Cameron was still Britain’s prime minister.
The government has also given no indication that it intends to use its 79-seat majority in the House of Commons to alter or clarify the law so that such appeals cannot be made in future, either.
Richard Tice, the Brexit Party chairman and entrepreneur, slammed the “disgraceful decision by judges” and observed that the “Shamima Begum saga” had “damaged trust in Judiciary.”
“Weak, weak, weak,” he railed, predicting that once back in the country — unnecessarily, in his view, due to her “physical presence” for a hearing being unnecessary in the era of services like Zoom — the state would “not be able to remove her again” however the decision on her citizenship goes.
The British government’s already poor record on forced removals has indeed dramatically worsened in recent years, with the number of so-called foreign national offenders (FNOs), illegal aliens, and others successfully removed collapsing by 22 per cent year-on-year to their lowest figure since 2004 despite a surge in both crime and illegal immigration.
It is far from uncommon for such individuals to be allowed to appeal against deportation orders repeatedly until they find judges willing to interpret the law in a way that allows them to remain in the country, with a particularly egregious recent case involving a Taliban terrorist who had already lost six legal aid appeals finally being told he could stay by a Scottish judge who suggested he would not be able to receive NHS-standard free healthcare for the PTSD he allegedly suffers from fighting in Afghanistan — presumably against British and/or allied forces.
Left-liberals and social justice warriors such as Gary Younge of the Guardian, however, have welcomed hailed the jihadi bride’s return as “great news”.
Many argue that Britain is in some abstract and ill-defined sense “responsible” for Begum and her radicalisation — despite the fact that those most responsible for her upbringing are, presumably, her parents, who are both Bangladesh-born Bangladeshi citizens — because she was born on British soil.
For the most part, curiously, the same people tend to argue that Britain is also responsible for the children of jihadists, born on Syrian or Iraqi soil, because their parents have or had British citizenship — a Catch-22 of sorts in which the rules are applied inconsistently and even inverted in order to force the British public to accept the burden (and the danger) of taking on extremists and their progeny in all circumstances.
There has been resistance to this sentiment from some commentators, however, including Douglas Murray, author of The Strange Death of Europe.
“The idea that the average British person’s aunt, second-cousin twice removed, and the old lady down the street all have to play their part to stop people signing up to head-hacking, Yezidi-enslaving, millenarian Islamist movements is stretching things I would say,” he argued in the right-leaning Spectator in early 2019.
Murray suggested that it might be more appropriate to consider institutions such as the East London Mosque and the families of Islamic State defectors like Begum when looking to apportion blame, recalling how the father of one of two other girls who travelled to Syria with her had “blamed the police for not stopping his daughter going out to join ISIS” in front of a parliamentary committee, and how “The heads of Britain’s cowed police force duly appeared in front of the same committee to express remorse at their failings.”
“Except that then some footage emerged of Mr Hussen at a demonstration in London in 2012. Not a demonstration calling for global peace and love, but a rally organised by Anjem Choudary to burn American flags and more,” Murray explained.
“‘The followers of Mohammed will conquer America’ read the banner at the front of the protest,” he added, noting that Michael Adebowale, one of the radical Islamic terrorists who assassinated off-duty soldier Lee Rigby, was also present at the event.