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| With a patriotic hero pose and everything. People actually buy in to this. |
Shamina Begum is making headlines at the moment as the girl
who, at fifteen, left the United Kingdom to join Islamic State in Syria. Now at
nineteen, she has lost two children, is pregnant with a third, and wants to
come back to the UK. Given the precariousness of the situation in general, and
the demographic of the people involved, it’s hardly surprising that Katie
Hopkins has put her foot in it again according to this macro. I understand that
the text comes from a video she put out not long after this situation came to
light. However, I have seen a lot of it shared throughout Facebook during the
day, and it’s alarming how many people are buying into the intended ideal –
particularly as she is making a statement that simply isn’t true.
We’ll come back to Hopkins later, but first let’s examine
what the situation is: It is not the case that Shamina Begum has given up her
right to call this country her home. She is a citizen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Under international law, the UK has no right
to revoke that citizenship. The only time a county is allowed to do this – and this
has happened, though I don’t know any specific details – is when a person has
dual nationality, in which case they can revoke the citizenship from their
country but not the other. A country is not allowed to leave somebody
stateless.
I’ve seen a few other macros floating around saying things
like “We don’t want her back,” “Your a spy” (sic) and “You only want to come
back so the NHS will look after your baby,” and other things of the kind. The plain
fact is that it’s not about whether we want Shamina to come back; it never was.
By law, we as a country have no right to prevent her from returning, if she
chooses so to do.
There have been some clickbait headlines purporting to be
from government officials saying that they’re not going to help Shamina return.
Again, the facts are a little more fundamental than that: Syria doesn’t have a
British Consul service, so helping her back is incredibly difficult. If Shamina
were to travel to Turkey, it would be another matter, but at present she
remains in Syria. To try to take her back by force would be seen as an
aggressive move that could cause an international incident neither country can
afford. The only other way would be to go through Interpol, and the issuing government has to be pretty sure of itself before it will do that.
I don’t know much about the circumstances in which Shamina left
the UK in the first place, but I would ask anybody claiming she is a traitor
and a spy to consider the possibility of her being groomed, or other
circumstances in which the decision to leave the UK was not entirely her own. Speaking
from the point of view of someone who doesn’t see how leaving one’s country of
birth to go and join a terrorist cell fighting for power in a country I’ve
never even seen, I wonder exactly how this decision was made. And remember
that, at the very least, she has a mother and father.
And as for Katie Hopkins: She has, at her most typical, made
a statement that is not true. Now, there are two possible explanations for
this. Either:
A)
She didn’t know the law relating to this
situation, in which case why is she shooting her mouth off before her brain is
fully loaded?
Or,
B)
(Assuming she knew the law,) She is asking us to
accept that it is perfectly OK to break international law whenever it suits us.
Either way, it’s complete and utter nonsense.
(Incidentally, I’m aware I’m saying most of this without
citation. Most of this information comes from various news sites I’ve been
reading over the last few days, and remarks I’ve seen from some of my contacts.
Also further information came to my attention about an international policing, and the text has changed slightly to reflect this.)
