LONDON: A British-born woman who went to Syria as a schoolgirl to join Daesh lost her latest appeal against the UK government’s decision to take away her citizenship on Wednesday.
Shamima Begum left London in 2015 aged 15 and traveled with two school friends to Syria, where she married an Daesh fighter and gave birth to three children, all of whom died as infants.
She was stripped of her British citizenship on national security grounds in 2019, shortly after she was found in a detention camp in Syria.
Begum, now 23, challenged that decision at a hearing in London in November, when her lawyers argued that Britain’s interior ministry, the Home Office, failed to investigate whether she was a “child victim of trafficking”.
Her lawyers also argued that then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid had “pre-determined” that Begum’s British citizenship should be revoked before he received any evidence from officials.
But lawyers representing the Home Office said Begum’s case was about national security rather than trafficking, arguing that Begum had aligned with Daesh and stayed in Syria for four years until 2019.
On Wednesday, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission – a specialist tribunal which hears appeals against decisions to remove citizenship on national security grounds – dismissed Begum’s appeal.
British-born Daesh recruit Shamima Begum loses appeal against removal of citizenship
https://arab.news/25ydd
British-born Daesh recruit Shamima Begum loses appeal against removal of citizenship
‘Keep dreaming’: NATO chief says Europe can’t defend itself without US
BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland.
US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory — before backing off after talks with Rutte last week.
The diplomatic crisis sparked gave fresh momentum to those advocating for Europe to take a tougher line against Trump and break its military reliance on Washington.
“If anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US — keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.
He said that EU countries would have to double defense spending from the five percent NATO target agreed last year to 10 percent and spend “billions and billions” on building nuclear arms.
“You would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella,” Rutte said. “So hey, good luck.”
The former Dutch prime minister insisted that US commitment to NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause remained “total,” but that the United States expected European countries to keep spending more on their militaries.
“They need a secure Euro-Atlantic, and they also need a secure Europe. So the US has every interest in NATO,” he said.
The NATO head reiterated his repeated praise for Trump for pressuring reluctant European allies to step up defense spending.
He also appeared to knock back a suggestion floated by the EU’s defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month for a possible European defense force that could replace US troops on the continent.
“It will make things more complicated. I think Putin will love it. So think again,” Rutte said.
On Greenland, Rutte said he had agreed with Trump that NATO would “take more responsibility for the defense of the Arctic,” but it was up to Greenlandic and Danish authorities to negotiate over US presence on the island.
“I have no mandate to negotiate on behalf of Denmark, so I didn’t, and I will not,” he said.
Rutte reiterated that he had stressed to Trump the cost paid by NATO allies in Afghanistan after the US leader caused outrage by playing down their contribution.
“For every two American soldiers who paid the ultimate price, one soldier of an ally or a partner, a NATO ally or a partner country, did not return home,” he said.
“I know that America greatly appreciates all the efforts.”
