Shamima Begum represents scores of women, including few from India, who have virtually become stateless after the defeat of the ISIS. This British-born national of Bangladeshi parents travelled to Syria as a schoolgirl of 15 years to join that extremist Islamic jihadi organization. Their predicament is pathetic, indeed, as they are stranded in camps far away from their homes. Now they are unwanted supposedly because their re-entry entails great risks for their countries of origin. Despite all the crimes they have committed by joining a ruthless, terrorist organization for whatever reasons, theirs is an inconvenient human rights question now. They cannot be dismissed as part of a cold-blooded gang of murderers nor can they be accepted as naive victims of human trafficking as the lawyers of some of them have sought to portray them. For, they seem to have chosen to embrace the life of a radical religious belief on their own volition. Their plea that they found the reality in the company of ISIS activists contrary to their expectations sounds highly dubious and untenable.
The plight of these women has once again become the focus of international attention after Shamima lost her latest appeal last week against the removal of her citizenship. Public opinion is divided over her case. Some say she should remain barred, while others believe she should stand trial in a British court for joining ISIS.
Shamima was born in 1999 in east London to parents of Bangladeshi origin. She is one of three schoolgirls who travelled in 2015 to ISIS-controlled Syria where she married an ISIS fighter and had two children, both of whom died as infants.
Her British citizenship was revoked on national security grounds shortly after she was found nine months pregnant in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019. She told the media at that time that she was tired of life on the battlefield and feared for her unborn child. That baby, named Jarrah, ultimately died from pneumonia later that year. Now 23, she is being held at the al-Roj camp, in Syria’s northeast, which is home to more than 2,000 people.
She has pleaded with the United Kingdom’s government to be repatriated with her family in London. In 2019, a British judge said British citizenship is “not an absolute entitlement for everyone. It can be removed by the Secretary of State, but it should not render the subject stateless.” A UK tribunal’s ruling in 2019 removing her citizenship was lawful because she “holds” Bangladeshi citizenship by descent through her parents. But, the problem is, Bangladesh itself denied this and said she would not be allowed in the country.
Three Court of Appeal judges ruled in 2020 that Shamima should be allowed back into the UK to challenge the revocation. The case was subsequently taken to the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2021 that Shamima has a right to challenge the decision, but she should do so from outside the UK due to “security concerns.”
The irony is Shamima has never held Bangladeshi nationality and has never visited Bangladesh – and officials of Bangladesh said they will not issue her citizenship. She is not the only one. A study by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation in Kings College revealed 52,808 men, women and children travelled to (or were born into) the areas of Iraq and Syria under ISIS control between 2013 and 2018.
But the verdict of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission rejecting Shamima’s appeal for citizenship may only strengthen the case of other governments and security agencies, including India, to deny entry of the hapless and seemingly misguided women back home.
Four women from Kerala – Sonia Sebastian alias Ayisha, Raffeala, Merrin Jacob alias Mariyam and Nimisha alias Fathima Isa – and their husbands had travelled to Afghanistan to join ISIS. There has so far been no official comment on the status of these women. But judging by Shamima’s case the four women, it seems, will have to wage a protracted legal battle.
There is a symptom of a deep malaise afflicting many parts of the world where religious fanaticism is luring women and men to a life of bigotry and hatred. Solving their issues, however, is not an easy task. These bigots have actively participated in crimes against humanity in the most barbaric fashion. Religious bigotry and hate should never be forgiven by any civilized society.