Woman Who Joined ISIS in Syria Loses Appeal to Regain British Citizenship

The British-born woman who went to Syria in 2015 at the age of 15 in order to join the Islamic State has lost her appeal to  the Special Immigration Appeals Commission against the withdrawal of her British citizenship. The British government took Shamima Begum’s citizenship in 2019 on the grounds of national security in 2019 after discovering that she was being held in a detention camp in Syria. She will now take her case to the Court of Appeal in London.

Begum, 23, who was born in England to immigrant parents of Bangladeshi origin,  remains in the al-Roj detention camp in northeastern Syria. Ten days after arriving in Syria with two school friends, Begum married Dutch-born Yago Riedijk, a convert to Islam who had been in Syria for a year. She had three children who all died. Some have suggested that she was a child victim of human trafficking.

A British appeals court in 2020 had ruled that Begum could return to England to defend herself in winning back her citizenship, but the country’s supreme court overturned the decision.