Who is 'ISIS bride' Shamima Begum, the British woman who lost citizenship appeal?

Shamima Begum, who made headlines as the “ISIS bride” after leaving London at age 15 to go to Syria, has lost her appeal against the decision to revoke her British citizenship. The 23-year-old had challenged then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to revoke her citizenship on national security grounds in 2019 at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), according to AFP. While the court determined the decision was for the government to make, it also said that some of Begum’s arguments had merit. Also read: Indian embassy in Kabul under threat of Islamic State attack: UN report Who is Shamima Begum? Shamima Begum was 15 when she left her east London home for Syria with two friends – 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana and 15-year-old Amira Abase – in 2015 to join the terror group ISIS (Islamic State of Iran and Syria) , according to AFP. [caption id=“attachment_12195792” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] British teenagers Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum passing through security barriers at Gatwick Airport, south of London. AFP[/caption] She was one of the few individuals whose case received global attention even while thousands of men and women were imprisoned in Syria and suffered a similar fate following the fall of the IS caliphate in 2019. While there, she married an ISIS fighter and had three children, however, none of them survived due to infancy. In February 2019, she said she was left stateless when Britain’s then-interior minister Sajid Javid revoked her British citizenship on national security grounds after she was found in the Syrian camp. A UK tribunal ruled in 2020 that she was not stateless because she was “a citizen of Bangladesh by descent” when the decision was made, by virtue of her Bangladeshi mother. Last month, she opened up about the media coverage and her choice to join the organisation in an interview with the BBC. During the podcast titled “The Shamima Begum Story,” she said, “But what was there to obsess over, we went to ISIS that was it, it was over, it was over and done with, what more is there to say? Like, they just wanted to continue the story because it was a story, it was the big story.” Also read: The Vicar of Baghdad, influencer Andrew Tate in shocking claim says, ‘ISIS are the real Muslims’ Manchester bombing controversy Begum received harsh criticism for claiming that the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, in which a suicide bomber detonated an explosive at the conclusion of a pop event, was “justified,” according to Wion. 22 people died in the incident. Later, she sought “forgiveness” for her comments as she started the fight to go back to the UK. Also read: Time for India to keep an eye on Kabul as all’s not well in Afghanistan and Taliban-Pakistan ties What does the UK government say? The UK government on Wednesday welcomed the ruling by The Special Immigration Appeals Commission that Begum cannot return to the UK from her current home in a refugee camp. Notably, in 2019, Sajid Javid had stripped Begum of her citizenship on national security grounds. The 23-year-old is one of the hundreds of Europeans whose fate has put governments in a difficult position since the self-declared caliphate of Islamist extremists collapsed in 2019. According to AFP, her lawyers claimed that she was a victim of trafficking, and didn’t leave her home willingly. Lawyer Samantha Knights, representing Begum, told the five-day SIAC hearing last November that her client had been “influenced” along with her friends by a “determined and effective” IS group “propaganda machine”. There was “overwhelming” evidence she had been “recruited, transported, transferred, harboured and received in Syria for the purposes of ‘sexual exploitation’ and ‘marriage’ to an adult male”, she added in written submissions. James Eadie, representing the government, said Javid had “properly considered” all the factors before making his decision. The case was about “national security”, not trafficking, he argued. An NGO named Amnesty International had called the ruling “very disappointing.” “The power to banish a citizen like this simply shouldn’t exist in the modern world,” said Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds. “Shamima Begum had lived all her life in the UK right up to the point she was lured to Syria as an impressionable 15-year-old,” he added. The UK government successfully argued that under Bangladeshi law, a UK national born to a Bangladeshi parent is automatically a Bangladeshi citizen, but Dhaka said that was not the case for Begum. Begum’s apparent lack of remorse in initial interviews drew outrage, but she has since expressed regret for her actions and sympathy for IS victims. Some 900 people are estimated to have travelled from Britain to Syria and Iraq to join IS. Of those, around 150 are believed to have been stripped of their citizenship, according to government figures. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.