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Category / Middle East
AIWA! NO!
Wired on people, events and life; giving 'voice to the voiceless'.
Former home secretary Sajid Javid revoked the teenager’s citizenship in February.
Ms Begum, now 20, left the UK in 2015 and was found in a Syrian refugee camp in February after living under IS rule for more than three years.
Former home secretary Sajid Javid revoked the teenager’s citizenship later that month, prompting her family to take legal action against the Home Office in a bid to overturn the decision.
On Tuesday, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a specialist court which hears challenges to decisions to remove someone’s British citizenship on national security grounds, will hold a four-day preliminary hearing in London.
Mrs Justice Elisabeth Laing is expected to deal with, among other things, whether depriving Ms Begum of her British citizenship rendered her stateless and was therefore unlawful.
Young members of the Druze community wave Syrian national flags during a rally in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on October 6, 2018 commemorating the 45th anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. / AFP PHOTO / JALAA MAREY
• READ MORE: IS bride Shamima Begum says she was ‘brainwashed’
Individuals appealing to SIAC usually remain anonymous, however it is understood that Ms Begum has waived her right to anonymity.
Ms Begum, then aged 15, was one of three schoolgirls – along with Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase – from Bethnal Green Academy who left their homes and families in February 2015 to join a fourth Bethnal Green schoolgirl, Sharmeena Begum, who had left London in 2014, in Syria.
In February, Ms Begum was found by The Times, nine months pregnant, at a refugee camp, telling the paper that she would “do anything required just to be able to come home”.
Ms Begum said she was married 10 days after arriving in Raqqa to a Dutchman who had converted to Islam, Yago Riedijk, who she claimed was later arrested, charged with spying and tortured.
She eventually left Raqqa in January 2017 with her husband but her children, a girl aged a year and nine months old and a three-month-old boy, both died.
• READ MORE: Jihadi bride Shamima Begum slams ‘unjust’ decision to revoke her citizenship
Her third child, a son, also died shortly after he was born.
Ms Begum told The Times she had “mostly” lived a “normal life in Raqqa, every now and then bombing and stuff”.
She added: “But when I saw my first severed head in a bin it didn’t faze me at all. It was from a captured fighter seized on the battlefield, an enemy of Islam. I thought only of what he would have done to a Muslim woman if he had the chance.”
The Home Office revoked her British citizenship later in February – a decision which is only lawful if it did not leave Ms Begum stateless.
It was speculated at the time that Ms Begum may have Bangladeshi citizenship, but Bangladesh’s minister of state for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam has denied this.
Home Secretary Priti Patel told The Sun last month that Ms Begum would not be able to return to the UK, telling the paper: “Our job is to keep our country safe.
“We don’t need people who have done harm and left our country to be part of a death cult and to perpetrate that ideology.
“We cannot have people who would do us harm allowed to enter our country – and that includes this woman.
“Everything I see in terms of security and intelligence, I am simply not willing to allow anybody who has been an active supporter or campaigner for IS in this country.”
As of today,every single child born and raised in Afghanistan has experienced war and conflict in their country, Save the Children said in statement today. October 7th marks 18 years since the start of the conflict between the coalition forces and the Taliban.
An estimated 20 million children wake up every day in fear of gunshots or bombs and being killed or maimed in their streets, schools or homes
Over 12,500 children were killed or maimed in the violence between 2015 and 2018, 274 children were recruited for combat or support roles
More than 3.7 million children are currently out of school, 60 percent of them
At least 700 schools are closed because of the violence in 2018
3,8 million children need humanitarian assistance, 600,000 of whom are suffering with severe acute malnutrition. Between 2014 and 2018, over 8,000 civilians fell victim to explosives such as IED’s and mines. 84 percent of the victims of explosive remnants of war are children.
280,000 people fled their homes this year, more than half of them are children
Onno van Manen, country director of Save the Children in Afghanistan:“Imagine turning 18 having known nothing but conflict and war throughout your entire childhood and formative years. Life in Afghanistan means living in daily fear of explosions, missing school because it’s too unsafe and not knowing if your parents or siblings will make it home. Violence has been consistently high in recent months. In August alone, an average of 74 people were killed every day.
Our staff talk to children who are out of school, working in the streets to try to help their families make ends meet, many of whom have been displaced by the conflict. Children with deep mental scars as they have lost loved ones or because they have seen terrible thing no child should witness.
It is concerning to see that children are accustomed to these levels of violence. Children are remarkably resilient, but no child should consider the sound of explosions or attack helicopters normal. Children in Afghanistan need to be protected and feel safe to go to school and work towards a future.
This day marks not one, but several generations losing out on their childhoods. For the sake of all Afghan children and the future of Afghanistan, the warring parties must do everything in their power to stop killing and maiming children during this terrible conflict and adhere to international laws and standards. That includes making sure schools and hospitals are not targets.
It’s time to stop this war on children. If international humanitarian laws are breached children suffer from it, there needs to be an independent investigation with the aim of holding perpetrators to account. The international community must not forget these children, who are in dire need of physical and psychological support to recover and educational support to rebuild their lives. They have the right to do so in safety without fear of further harm.’
Notes to editors:
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman rules Saudi Arabia day-to-day on behalf of his father, the king. The heir to the throne is a man of contradictions. He presents himself as a young, progressive leader, a supporter of women in the workplace and, famously, behind the wheel. But he is also conducting a bloody war in Yemen, stands accused of targeting civilians and children and employing famine as a weapon. He’s rounded up political dissidents and the CIA believes he is behind the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the crown prince.
Turkey arrested two suspects who confessed to spying on Arab nationals for the United Arab Emirates, and is investigating whether the arrival in Turkey of one of them was related to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a senior Turkish official said on Friday. One of the two men arrived in Turkey in October 2018, days after Khashoggi was murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, the official said, adding the other had arrived later to help his colleague with the workload. “We are investigating whether the primary individual’s arrival in Turkey was related to the Jamal Khashoggi murder,” said the official, adding the person had been monitored for six months before the arrests in Istanbul on Monday. “It is possible that there was an attempt to collect information about Arabs, including political dissidents, living in Turkey.”
Earlier this month, after an Iranian missile and drone attack on Saudi oil facilities, the United States committed additional American troops to help defend the Saudis. It was nearly midnight by the time we spoke with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman on Tuesday, at the royal court in Jeddah. There was a lot to ask. Our first question was about the death, a year ago, of Jamal Khashoggi, something the crown prince has never discussed in a television interview.
Islamic State has been conquered and the war has ended in large parts of Syria, but most Syrian refugees living in Germany want to stay. Many fear persecution if they go back while others have already established themselves in their new home. By Katrin Elger and Asia Haidar Maurizio Gambarini / DPA July 03, 2019 […]
via No Way Back: Why Most Syrian Refugees Want to Stay in Germany — The Muslim Times