ISIS bride Shamima Begum’s possible UK return sparks fury | Politics | News


ISIS terror bride Shamima Begum must never be allowed to return to the UK, whatever European judges say, Sir Keir Starmer has been told. Opposition politicians warned that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was putting the public at risk by demanding that the Home Office justify its decision to strip the Islamic State fanatic of her British citizenship.

Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp is to demand assurances that Begum will be kept out of the country when he raises the case in Parliament on Monday. He said: โ€œBegum chose to go and support the violent Islamist extremists of Daesh, who murdered opponents, raped thousands of women and girls and threw people off buildings for being gay. She has no place in the UK.โ€

And Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: โ€œItโ€™s outrageous that a major decision like this of national interest can be made in the ECHR โ€“ it shows why we must leave.

โ€œShe must not be allowed back.โ€

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has vowed to fight any attempt by judges in Strasbourg to overturn the 2019 decision to remove Begumโ€™s British citizenship and ban her from the UK, a move that was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Begum had left her Tower Hamlets home in 2015 at the age of 15 to join Islamic State in Syria, where she currently lives in a detention camp.

However, Labour remains committed to membership of the European Convention on Human Rights, enforced by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which both Reform and the Conservatives have pledged to leave.

The Express this week revealed that the court has demanded that the British Government explain whether exiling Begum broke human rights and anti-trafficking laws.

Judges demanded answers within months, in a move that Begumโ€™s lawyers, Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, described as an โ€œunprecedented opportunityโ€.

It comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was โ€œdelightedโ€ by the return of Alaa Abd el-Fattah to the UK, only for it to emerge that the British-Egyptian activist had called for the murder of โ€œZionistsโ€ and police officers, while he also described British people as dogs and monkeys.

Mr Philp said: โ€œUnder no circumstances should Shamima Begum be allowed back into the UK. I will raise this case in Parliament on Monday with the Home Secretary.

โ€œIt is deeply concerning the European Court of Human Rights is now looking at using the European Convention on Human Rights to make the UK take her back. I have no confidence this Labour Government will robustly defend the UKโ€™s interests in this case.

โ€œWhat is clearer than ever is that we must leave the Convention in order to protect our borders. The Conservatives are the only party with a proper plan to do that.โ€

Alan Mendoza, executive director of think tank the Henry Jackson Society, said: โ€œThe British Government must resist this overreach from an institution that is seemingly set on trying to undermine our national security at whatever cost.

โ€œThe decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship, on account of the threat she might pose to the UK, has been backed to the hilt by British courts. No foreign court is going to tell us otherwise.โ€

A Home Office spokesperson said: โ€œThe Government will always protect the UK and its citizens.

โ€œThat is why Shamima Begum, who posed a national security threat, had her British citizenship revoked and is unable to return to the UK.

โ€œWe will robustly defend any decision made to protect our national security.โ€

Begum, who grew up in east London and travelled to Syria with two other school friends, married Dutch Islamic convert Yago Riedijk. The pair had three children, who all died as infants.

In 2019, the then home secretary Sajid Javid stripped her of British citizenship on the basis that she could also claim citizenship in Bangladesh, so would not be stateless โ€“ a decision later upheld by the UKโ€™s Supreme Court.

Now 26, Begum is still living in the al-Roj camp, which is home to thousands of former jihadis, after losing all of her appeals in the UK.

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