British-born Shamima Begum during her stay in Roj camp in Syria (Getty)

The Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom ruled - yesterday morning, Friday, not to accept the appeal submitted by Shamima Begum against a previous ruling stripping her of her British citizenship, noting that the British judiciary had revoked the citizenship of the girl (24 years old) for the first time in 2019, and then she appealed this decision. Last year before an immigration appeals panel, she lost.

The British newspaper The Guardian - in an article by writer Zoe Williams - saw that this latest ruling may represent the end of Begum’s hope of returning to her homeland, despite the circumstances of the young woman whose three children all died, and she lives in a refugee camp called the “mini-caliphate,” and her citizens only mention her. Periodically to defame it and then forget it again.

It would be foolish to try to guess their levels of resilience or desperation.

The writer pointed out that the ruling failed to take into account that Begum had been lured and trafficked, which would have put the court in breach of protection measures against slavery in Britain, and this was the focus of her appeal.

She added that the idea that Begum cannot return to Britain because she poses a major threat to national security means that the British justice and police forces combined are no match for a young woman of her age, who can be easily identified, and her whereabouts are supposed to be known for the rest of her life.

This would amount to incompetence that amounts to a denial of the state's duty: if it cannot protect us from Begum, “how will it fare against an adversary who has not abandoned fundamentalism and whose identity is not yet known?” the Guardian article asked.

The author concluded her article by saying that this ruling proves that some British citizens are less equal than others, and that Parliament must address the problem, and the courts cannot object to the law, “and we must all think about what this means, because the principle is very stark.”

This means that anyone whose parents were born abroad would have a more controversial and unstable British citizenship, since Begum is of Bangladeshi origin, but she has never been to Bangladesh and knows nothing about it.

Source: Guardian