{UAH} IS bride Shamima Begum's baby 'can be British citizen', suggests Sajid Javid
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IS bride Shamima Begum's baby 'can be British citizen', suggests Sajid Javid
The home secretary hints the 19-year-old's baby son could be allowed into the UK, despite his mother being barred.
Wednesday 20 February 2019 15:35, UK
Islamic State bride Shamima Begum's baby son can be British despite her citizenship being removed, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has suggested.
Speaking in the House of Commons this afternoon, Mr Javid signalled the 19-year-old's child could be allowed into the UK, despite his mother being barred.
Shamima Begum, who is seeking to return to Britain having fled to Syria as a 15-year-old schoolgirl in 2015, recently gave birth in a refugee camp in the country.
However, her hopes of being allowed back into the UK to raise her son appear to have been dashed, after a lawyer representing her family revealed the Home Office have stripped her British citizenship.
Despite not commenting directly on the case of Shamima Begum, Mr Javid hinted her child's right to be British would be unaffected by his department's action.
Answering an urgent question in the Commons, he told MPs: "Children should not suffer, so if a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child.
"Deprivation is a powerful tool that can only be used to keep the most dangerous individuals our of this country and we do not lose it lightly.
"But when someone turns their back on the fundamental values and supports terror, they don't have an automatic right to return to the UK.
"We must put the safety and the security of our country first and I will not hesitate to act to protect it."
Mr Javid insisted the government had to make "tough decisions" to keep the UK safe, adding: "There must be consequences for those that back terror."
With around 40% of the 900 people who travelled from the UK to Syria and Iraq having now returned, Mr Javid said those who have come back had all been investigated and the majority pose no or a low security risk.
A similar number - including Shamima Begum - remain in the region, with Mr Javid telling MPs: "Those who stayed include some of the most dangerous, including many who supported terrorism.
"Not least those who chose to fight or to raise families in the so-called caliphate.
"They turned their back on this country to support a group that butchered and beheaded innocent civilians, including British citizens.
"That tied the arms of homosexuals and threw them off the top of buildings, and that raped countless young girls, boys and women."
Mr Javid stressed the removal of British citizenship "is only used in extreme circumstances, where conducive to the public good".
He also appeared to confirm suggestions Shamima Begum's citizenship can be revoked because she is a dual national or has the right to citizenship elsewhere.
Under international law, it is illegal for a country to make someone stateless by removing their citizenship.
Shamima Begum is believed to be a dual British-Bangladeshi national, although her family's lawyer has said the UK-born teenager of Bangladeshi heritage has never had a Bangladeshi passport and is not a dual citizen.
Labour's shadow home secretary Diane Abbott suggested Mr Javid was in breach of the 1948 United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality".
On the case of Shamima Begum, Ms Abbott said: "The home secretary knows the Home Office has lost two cases where they attempted to strip people of their nationality on this basis of Bangladeshi nationality by descent.
"They lost. Why is he going forward with the same strategy now?"
Mr Javid replied: "It would be just wrong to take one particular case that may have been in the courts and to apply that all other potential cases that follow that."
He suggested government lawyers had taken into account previous court rulings before providing advice on Shamima Begum's case.
Mr Javid also stressed it is "incredibly important that all governments abide" by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that decisions to deprive British citizenship are "anything but arbitrary".
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Sir Ed Davey, who asked the urgent question of Mr Javid, said: "Surely a British citizen, born in Britain, is a British responsibility?"
On Twitter, Sir Ed later accused Mr Javid of "pandering to the right wing press", adding: "I am convinced his legal case will be defeated."
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