The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[Xela]

7 hours ago, KentVillan said:

What do we think about Shamima Begum?

She's a word removed. 

 

[KentVillan]

2 minutes ago, Xela said:

She's a word removed. 

I agree with that. Just not convinced we ever had a very strong case for taking away her citizenship, and as someone else said, the whole thing seemed like Sajid Javid on leadership manoeuvres.

On the other hand, I wouldn't shed any tears if a drone took her out. It's a weird one. Not sure there is an obvious correct answer, but I do think the law should be wielded with care by politicians, as doing stuff like this usually has unintended consequences.

I'm also not convinced she's really an unusually big threat to British security in comparison to tens of thousands of other people who are allowed to have British passports.

[blandy]

7 hours ago, Davkaus said:

If she does manage to take it a step further and somehow win her legal claim, I think her reward is an immediate arrest and prosecution for terrorist offences, so I'm surprised she's been taking it this far. 

Where’s the evidence a British court could convict on?  I suspect if they had bang to rights evidence the whole saga would have been very different.  She went over there, did whatever, ended up in a Syrian camp in a tent.

[Xela]

52 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

I agree with that. Just not convinced we ever had a very strong case for taking away her citizenship, and as someone else said, the whole thing seemed like Sajid Javid on leadership manoeuvres.

On the other hand, I wouldn't shed any tears if a drone took her out. It's a weird one. Not sure there is an obvious correct answer, but I do think the law should be wielded with care by politicians, as doing stuff like this usually has unintended consequences.

I'm also not convinced she's really an unusually big threat to British security in comparison to tens of thousands of other people who are allowed to have British passports.

Yep, I'm sure the powers that be wished she'd gone the same way as the other 2 girls who went over there. 

I dare say, in different times, in more secretive times, she'd have been disposed of by now. Ah well. 

Even a documentary maker who met her recently said she's fake and has no remorse. What to do with her though?

[tonyh29]

2 hours ago, KentVillan said:

and as someone else said, the whole thing seemed like Sajid Javid on leadership manoeuvres.

 

if Javid was on a leadership bid her  appeals would have been successful , unless the  British justice system is also Islamophobic and angling to be leader of the Tory party  

 

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by tonyh29

[KentVillan]

11 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I wouldn’t confuse VT anti Tory rhetoric with the truth tbh 

if Javid was on a leadership bid her  appeals would have been successful , unless the  British justice system is also Islamophobic and angling to be leader of the Tory party  

Well that theory didn't originate on VT, and it did all happen around the time he was very clearly angling to be leader of the Tory party.

What the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has actually ruled is similar to a VAR decision where they would back the referee in either direction. Basically saying the Home Secretary has the right to do this under British law.

That doesn't mean Javid wasn't on manoeuvres, and nor does it mean the Commission is biased. Just that it's a sufficiently grey area that they aren't willing to overturn it.

Edit: and don't get me wrong, I don't have all that much sympathy with her, and from what I gather "deradicalisation" rarely works (check Quilliam's purported successes in that area for a litany of lies and disasters). I'm just not convinced the Home Secretary stepping in to do stuff like this because of media attention ends well, because it sets precedents that have unintended consequences, and sadly it will always be the case that some UK citizens pose a threat to the country... how does this really differ from Sinn Fein and the IRA 30 years ago?

Is she more dangerous as a stateless refugee being monitored by intelligence from afar or a UK citizen being monitored by intelligence at home? Seems debatable.

Edited February 22, 2023 by KentVillan

[chrisp65]

I think what this needs is someone to elevate it to the European Court of Human Rights.

Now that would be funny.

[KentVillan]

Quote

"If asked to evaluate all the circumstances of Ms Begum's case, reasonable people with knowledge of all the relevant evidence will differ, in particular in relation to the issue of the extent to which her travel to Syria was voluntary and the weight to be given to that factor in the context of all others," said the judge.
 

"Likewise, reasonable people will differ as to the threat she posed in February 2019 to the national security of the United Kingdom, and as to how that threat should be balanced against all countervailing considerations.
 

"However, under our constitutional settlement these sensitive issues are for the secretary of state to evaluate and not for the commission."
 

This isn't the first time a legal challenge by Ms Begum's lawyers has failed. In February 2020 the same commission rejected her team's argument that she had been made "de facto stateless" when her citizenship was removed.
 

It agreed with the Home Office's position that since she was technically entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship, it wasn't legally obliged to allow her to keep her UK rights.
 

In February 2021, the Supreme Court said she could not return to the UK to fight her case on security grounds.
 

Unlike the UK, other western countries like France, Germany and Australia have allowed an increasing number of former IS supporters back.
 

All US citizens who travelled to Syria to join the self-styled Islamic State group have been allowed to return to the country, barrister Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC.
 

He said the pace of repatriations "seems to be increasing", with Germany allowing 100 citizens back, France allowing more than 100, and Sweden also allowing citizens to return in double figures.
 

He told BBC News: "Little by little, countries are beginning to change their posture from [a] strategic distance to try and manage their return.

"There is a bit of a risk that the UK could become a bit of an outlier."

from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64731007

Think it's interesting not just what the judge said (that this can be perceived either way), but also that other countries have been handling this differently.

[StefanAVFC]

The other thing here (that I was actually just read on twitter and hadn’t considered) is that it sets a precedent in law that there are potential punishments that cannot apply to all. 
 

Those with dual citizenships now have the possibility and risk of having citizenship removed. A punishment in the eyes of the law should not be conditional. It should apply to all or none. 

[KentVillan]

20 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

The other thing here (that I was actually just read on twitter and hadn’t considered) is that it sets a precedent in law that there are potential punishments that cannot apply to all. 
 

Those with dual citizenships now have the possibility and risk of having citizenship removed. A punishment in the eyes of the law should not be conditional. It should apply to all or none. 

Not sure that's a particularly strong argument. It wasn't a punishment for a specific crime in the same way as a fine or prison sentence. And there are lots of things Govts can do to some citizens and not to others.

Also, actual Dual Citizens have always been exposed to this risk, and international law allows it. The issue with Begum is that she wasn't really a dual citizen. She was born in the UK and only had a UK passport.

Edited February 22, 2023 by KentVillan

[Davkaus]

20 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The issue with Begum is that she wasn't really a dual citizen. She was born in the UK and only had a UK passport.

You don't need to hold a passport to be a citizen.

[icouldtelltheworld]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

The other thing here (that I was actually just read on twitter and hadn’t considered) is that it sets a precedent in law that there are potential punishments that cannot apply to all. 
 

Those with dual citizenships now have the possibility and risk of having citizenship removed. A punishment in the eyes of the law should not be conditional. It should apply to all or none. 

Does it though? Setting a precedent in case law implies this is the first such instance of a dual national having their British citizenship revoked. It isn't, and has been used on others recently too - same happened to Jack Letts in 2019 as one recent example.

I think this is a really complicated debate, but there's a desire from some commentators to present the Begum case as some complete outlier which is frankly a bit odd.

[KentVillan]

21 minutes ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

Does it though? Setting a precedent in case law implies this is the first such instance of a dual national having their British citizenship revoked. It isn't, and has been used on others recently too - same happened to Jack Letts in 2019 as one recent example.

I think this is a really complicated debate, but there's a desire from some commentators to present the Begum case as some complete outlier which is frankly a bit odd.

Isn't it an outlier because in all the other cases where citizenship has been revoked, the dual nationality status hasn't been disputed by the other country? Bangladesh says she isn't a Bangladeshi citizen.

[NurembergVillan]

In the last 13 years, 212 Britons have been stripped of their citizenship.

Of all the countries in the world, only Bahrain has done this to more people over this period.

[icouldtelltheworld]

8 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Isn't it an outlier because in all the other cases where citizenship has been revoked, the dual nationality status hasn't been disputed by the other country? Bangladesh says she isn't a Bangladeshi citizen.

There may be an argument here, but I suspect it would be strengthened for her were she to form a legal challenge to prove her Bangladeshi citizenship, which was then in turn rejected. To the best of my knowledge, that hasn't happened (could well be wrong - must be honest I'm sick of the whole media circus around her).

The facts are that at the time her British citizenship was revoked she was a Bangladeshi citizen, so she was not made stateless by the decision to revoke her British citizenship. Thus its all a bit of a moot point and certainly not unprecedented

[NurembergVillan]

She could face the death penalty if she entered Bangladesh though, according to the Foreign Secretary in 2019, and we wouldn't extradite her there in that case so I don't see how this is different.

[KentVillan]

58 minutes ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

There may be an argument here, but I suspect it would be strengthened for her were she to form a legal challenge to prove her Bangladeshi citizenship, which was then in turn rejected. To the best of my knowledge, that hasn't happened (could well be wrong - must be honest I'm sick of the whole media circus around her).

The facts are that at the time her British citizenship was revoked she was a Bangladeshi citizen, so she was not made stateless by the decision to revoke her British citizenship. Thus its all a bit of a moot point and certainly not unprecedented

That isn’t a fact, though, the Bangladeshi Govt specifically contests this point. Their argument is she never exercised her right to Bangladeshi citizenship and therefore was never a dual national.

Obviously we don’t have the legal clout on VT to decide, and the British courts have come down against this point, but it sounds sufficiently debatable that another court could rule in the other direction.

Not aware of any similar case

[tonyh29]

7 hours ago, KentVillan said:

That isn’t a fact, though, the Bangladeshi Govt specifically contests this point. Their argument is she never exercised her right to Bangladeshi citizenship and therefore was never a dual national.

Obviously we don’t have the legal clout on VT to decide, and the British courts have come down against this point, but it sounds sufficiently debatable that another court could rule in the other direction.

Not aware of any similar case

the article I linked to said it was automatic via  (Citizenship Act 1951 ) bloodline until they were 21 and then they have to exercise the right to continue it  , she was 20 when the UK government removed her British Citizenship 

Bangladesh were arguing otherwise , but I don't see anything in that 1951 act that confirms their viewpoint , but admittedly its not my area of expertise 

[tonyh29]

8 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

She could face the death penalty if she entered Bangladesh though, according to the Foreign Secretary in 2019, and we wouldn't extradite her there in that case so I don't see how this is different.

Blandy appears to make the case that she could walk free if she came back to the UK 

what are the grounds for Bangladesh executing her ? 

[ml1dch]

13 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

if Javid was on a leadership bid her  appeals would have been successful , unless the  British justice system is also Islamophobic and angling to be leader of the Tory party  

Unless I've misread the judgement, the court confirmed that Javid had the legal right to do it, and made no comment on the (potentially) politically expedient reasons why he did it.