European court questions UK decision to revoke Shamima Begum's citizenship

A top European court has questioned the UK's revocation of the citizenship of Shamima Begum, after she left the country to join the so-called Islamic State (IS) as a teenage girl.

The European Court of Human Rights is pressing Britain over the responsibility of the state towards victims of trafficking, before it revoked her British citizenship.

The then 15-year-old schoolgirl from Bethnal Green, east London, travelled to territory held by IS 10 years ago.

Shamima Begum was then "married off" to an IS fighter and eventually stripped of her British citizenship in 2019, as the government said she posed a threat to national security.

Ms Begum remains in a Syrian camp, where her baby son died in 2019 before the citizenship decision.

A document published by the European court earlier this month states Ms Begum is challenging the decision under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits slavery and forced labour.

The case was lodged in December last year, after she had been denied the chance to challenge the removal of her British citizenship at the UK's Supreme Court.

'Child lured for sexual exploitation'

Among four questions posed by judges in Strasbourg to the Home Office, the court asked: "Did the Secretary of State have a positive obligation, by virtue of Article 4 of the Convention, to consider whether the applicant had been a victim of trafficking, and whether any duties or obligations to her flowed from that fact, before deciding to deprive her of her citizenship?"

Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, which is representing Ms Begum, said the court's communication presents an "unprecedented opportunity" for the UK and Ms Begum to "grapple with the significant considerations raised in her case and ignored, sidestepped or violated up to now by previous UK administrations".

Lawyer Gareth Peirce said it is "impossible to dispute that a 15-year-old British child" was "lured, encouraged and deceived for the purposes of sexual exploitation to leave home and travel to IS-controlled territory for the known purpose of being given, as a child, to an IS fighter to propagate children for the Islamic State".

She added: "It is equally impossible not to acknowledge the catalogue of failures to protect a child known for weeks beforehand to be at high risk when a close friend had disappeared to Syria in an identical way and via an identical route.

"It has already been long conceded that the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, who took the precipitous decision in 2019 very publicly to deprive Ms Begum of citizenship, had failed entirely to consider the issues of grooming and trafficking of a school child in London and of the state's consequent duties."

Ms Peirce, who also represented the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, added that the government has recently made the protection of victims of grooming and trafficking a national priority.

Review called UK an 'outlier'

In November, a counterterrorism review called for Shamima Begum and other British-linked people in Syria to be repatriated, calling the UK an "outlier" in its policy towards such citizens.

But the Home Office, responding to the correspondence from the European court, said any decision made to protect national security would be robustly defended.

"The Government will always protect the UK and its citizens," a spokesperson said.

"That is why Shamima Begum - who posed a national security threat - had her British citizenship revoked and is unable to return to the UK.

"We will robustly defend any decision made to protect our national security."

The Conservatives said Ms Begum should not be allowed back into the UK "under any circumstances".

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: "Begum 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."

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