Former “Islamic State bride” Shamima Begum, who left the UK to join the IS terrorist group in Syria at the age of 15, has lost her case for the reclamation of her British citizenship.
Shamima Begum, born in the UK to parents with Bangladeshi roots, went to Syria with two school friends in 2015 to join the terrorist group IS. On Friday, Shamima Begum lost her court appeal challenging the UK government’s 2019 decision to remove her British citizenship. Three judges of the court of appeals on Friday dismissed her arguments for restoration of citizenship on all grounds.
The Court of Appeal judgment said then UK home secretary Sajid Javid was entitled to reach the decision that she was dangerous.
She now lives in the al-Roj detention camp in northeastern Syria.
In 2023, Begum told the BBC from the Syrian camp that being stuck thre was “worse than being in a prison”, adding, “At least with prison sentences you know that there will be an end, but here you don’t know if there’s going to be an end.”
HOW UK’S SHAMIMA BECAME ‘JIHADI BRIDE’
While Shamima Begum’s two friends, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, are believed to have been killed, she herself lived under IS rule for more than three years. Shamima Begum became popular as an “ISIS bride” or “jihadi bride” after she married a Dutch IS fighter in Syria.
Shamima Begum resurfaced in 2019 at a Syrian refugee camp and requested that she be allowed back into the UK. She was stripped of her UK citizenship on national security grounds in 2019.