The government’s terrorism watchdog, Jonathan Hall QC, has recommended that British women, including Shamima Begum, who joined the Islamic State, be brought home from Syria.
The US and other allies have already repatriated their citizens and are putting pressure on the UK to do the same.
The most high-profile case of a British woman joining the IS is that of Shamima Begum, who was just 15 when she joined two friends from Bethnal Green in east London in 2015.
Her citizenship was revoked on national security grounds shortly after being found in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019.
Ms. Begum’s lawyers had argued at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) that she should be allowed to return to Britain on the grounds that she was a “victim of child sex trafficking.”
However, the Home Office said she posed a risk to the UK. She recently lost her appeal against the removal of her citizenship. Her lawyers plan to appeal the ruling.
About 60 British women and children are currently in Syria, many without travel documents and no means of leaving without the help of the British government.
The government is now under pressure to bring them back to the UK. In a speech at King’s College London, Mr. Hall is expected to say that the British Government’s policy of removing citizenship and limiting assistance it will give to British citizens in Syria is “at a crossroads.”
He will say that the risk ISIS poses has changed, and the UK is now “under the spotlight” as other countries repatriate their citizens.
Mr. Hall will argue that women with children may fear child protection measures being taken against them, mitigating further terrorist engagement.
He will say that for UK-linked children, the less time spent being incubated as cubs of the caliphate, the better.
Shamima Begum’s story is one of the most prominent cases of a British woman joining the IS.
The former straight-A London schoolgirl left for Syria with two friends from Bethnal Green Academy when she was just 15.
She married a Dutchman named Yago Riedijk and had three children, who later died from malnourishment or disease. Ms. Begum was found nine months pregnant in a refugee camp in Al-Hawl in February 2019.
She lost her appeal against the decision to deprive her of her British citizenship in 2021. The Supreme Court ruled she could not return to the UK, leading her to beg the British public for forgiveness.
»Jonathan Hall QC recommends that British women be brought home from Syria«
↯↯↯Read More On The Topic On TDPel Media ↯↯↯