Shamima Begum, a London teenager who left Britain four years ago to join the Islamic State group, is to be stripped of her U.K. citizenship by the government, her family's lawyer said Tuesday.
Attorney Tasnime Akunjee tweeted that the family is "very disappointed with the Home Office's intention to have an order made depriving Shamima of her citizenship."
He said the family is "considering all legal avenues to challenge this decision."
FILE - This Monday Feb. 23, 2015 file handout image of a three image combo of stills taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police shows Kadiza Sultana, left, Shamima Begum, center, and Amira Abase going through security at Gatwick airport, south England, before catching their flight to Turkey. Shamima Begum told The Times newspaper in a story published Thursday Feb. 14, 2019, that she wants to come back to London. (Metropolitan Police via AP)
ITV News reported that the family had received a letter from the Home Office, which oversees immigration, saying that the order revoking Begum's British citizenship had already been made. The letter said Begum could appeal the decision.
Begum left London with two friends in 2015, when she was 15, and traveled to Syria. Now 19 and living in a refugee camp, she says she has given birth to a baby and wants to come home.
The case has reignited a debate in the U.K. about how to deal with citizens who joined IS but want to return home now that the group is on the verge of collapse. U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that European countries take back their citizens who fought in Syria, but European nations are worried about security.
Begum was found this month by The Times newspaper in a refugee camp in Syria. She said she had fled the Islamic State group's last enclave.
The teenager said she had married an IS fighter, had lost two children through malnutrition and disease, and wanted her newly born baby boy to grow up in Britain.
In a series of interviews with British media, she criticized some aspects of the Islamic State group and its self-proclaimed caliphate, but said she does not regret going there.
She said she had been "OK with" beheadings carried out by Islamic State adherents because she believed it was allowed under Islamic law.
"I think a lot of people should have sympathy towards me for everything I've been through," she told Sky News. "I just was hoping that maybe for me, for the sake of me and my child, they let me come back."
Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who oversees immigration, said Monday he would not hesitate to prevent the return of Britons who traveled abroad to join IS.
The British government has the power to remove citizenship on national-security grounds, though not if it would make the individual stateless. It was not immediately clear whether Begum has a second nationality.
Javid told lawmakers on Monday that more than 100 dual nationals had been stripped of their U.K. citizenship for terrorism-related reasons.
Hundreds of Britons have already returned from IS-controlled areas. Some have been prosecuted, and others put through deradicalization programs.
British officials say about 900 Britons went to areas of Syria and Iraq that were controlled by the group. Of those, around 20 percent were killed, and about half of the survivors have returned to Britain.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed satisfaction on Monday after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor.
Candidates from his pro-European Union centrist Civic Coalition, or running with the party's backing, won in a series of cities in the second round of local elections held on Sunday, among them Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Rzeszow.
“It is very difficult to clearly say who won and who lost,” Tusk said Monday. “But if we compare these results, especially in the most attractive places, on these attractive battlefields ... then I actually have reasons for satisfaction.”
“Law and Justice has simply disappeared in many places,” Tusk added at a news conference, referring to the main opposition party.
The results put Civic Coalition in a favorable position as the country looks next to elections to the European Parliament on June 9.
Mayors were chosen in a total of 748 cities and towns where no single candidate won at least 50% of the vote during the first round on April 7.
Candidates for Tusk’s party also recaptured cities where they had not held power for many years, including Zielona Gora, Legnica and Torun.
The local and regional elections were viewed as a test for Tusk's pro-European Union government four months after it took power at the national level. Sunday's second round strengthened the Tusk government's leverage in the cities, which should facilitate cooperation on development projects and allotment of EU funds.
Tusk's allies also won in some places in the first round two weeks ago, including in Warsaw, where incumbent Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski was an easy victor.
In the first round, the right-wing Law and Justice, prevailed on the level of regional assemblies in the country's 16 provinces, where it took 34.3% of the votes, while Tusk's Civic Coalition got 30.6%. Law and Justice governed on the national level from 2015-23.
Tusk’s socially liberal Civic Coalition traditionally has strong support in cities, while Law and Justice has a more solid base in conservative rural areas, particularly in eastern Poland.
Civic Coalition is the largest group in a three-party coalition that governs the EU nation of 38 million people. The coalition is pro-European Union but otherwise spans a wide ideological spectrum with left-wing politicians in the Left party as well as conservatives in the Third Way.
Polish voters take part in a local runoff election in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Campaign posters promote candidates as Poles vote in local and regional elections in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Polish voters take part in a local runoff election in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Polish voters take part in a local runoff election in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
FILE - Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk reacts during his and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting with students in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk is celebrating a victory on Monday April 22, 2024 after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
FILE - Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk listens to the media in Berlin, Germany, Friday, March 15, 2024. Tusk is celebrating a victory on Monday April 22, 2024 after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
