An independent watchdog has decided to intervene and analyse the number of women who have been stripped off their citizenship following their association with Islamic State. The development appears after the Home Office refused to share the data with a human rights group concerned about the conditions of British women and children detained in camps in north-east Syria, where conditions are dire.
In a recent article in The Guardian, Alison Huyghe, advocacy officer with Rights and Security International, has accused the Home Office of engaging in a “dogged refusal” to disclose data, meaning that the policy of removing British citizenship was “beyond all oversight”.
She said, “We need to know about any risk of discrimination or other patterns of gender-related harm when the government takes people’s British citizenship away.”
Ministers including former Home Secretary Sajid Javid have taken away UK citizenship from Britons after the fall of ISIS at the end of the 2010s, arguing that they pose a national security threat and should not be allowed to return. British law allows the home secretary to take away somebody’s nationality if doing so is deemed “conducive to the public good”. But it is illegal to render somebody stateless if they are not eligible for citizenship of another country.
A legal challenge from Begum failed in the supreme court last month. But two other women, known only as C3 and C4, who had also travelled to Syria, overturned a deprivation decision after a court ruled that they could not have claimed Bangladeshi citizenship. Estimates suggested that there remain about 15 women with 35 children being held by the Syrian Kurds, with no assistance from the UK. But their exact number and how many have been deprived of their citizenship have not been made public.
In the meantime, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s wife, Asma Assad continues to enjoy her British citizenship despite allegations of terror offences. British police have opened a preliminary investigation into claims she has incited, aided and encouraged war crimes by Syrian government forces. If convicted, she could lose her citizenship.
