ISIS bride Shamima Begum says she was 'raped' by her jihadi husband as she makes another bid to return to UK
Teenage ISIS bride Shamima Begum, who fled to Syria from east London when she was 15 to join the militant organization, is seeking to return to Britain and ask that her citizenship be reinstated on an argument that she was a rape victim of her jihadi husband.
Former home secretary Sajid Javid had revoked the now-19-year-old's citizenship this past February, following which her family had started legal action against the Home Office and claimed that the move was unlawful, according to the Mirror.
The decision would have been lawful only if it didn't leave Begum stateless, an assumption that has proven to be false. It was thought at the time that she had Bangladeshi citizenship, something that the country's minister of state for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam has denied.
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), which deals with appeals from persons deported by the Home Secretary under various statutory powers for reasons usually related to national security, opened a four-day preliminary hearing into the matter this past Tuesday, October 22.
Tasnime Akunjee, the lawyer for Begum's family, will be arguing that the 19-year-old's citizenship should be restored because she was a victim of rape and that the case cannot be heard without her presence in the court.
"She was married in an Isis ceremony within two weeks of reaching Syria to a 23-year-old fighter," he said. "Her context is as a rape victim or a statutory rape victim."
She was reportedly married to a Dutchman who had converted to Islam, Yago Riedijk, just 10 days after arriving in Raqqa. She left the city in January 2017 with her husband and her children, neither of whom survived the journey. Her third child, a boy, also died shortly after he was born.
MEAWW previously reported that Begum, who had to flee the Al-Hol refugee camp in Al-Hawl in northern Syria after she received death threats due to her constant presence in the media and status as a sort of pseudo-celebrity, was begging to be allowed back into the UK.
The teen, who had previously said she was "unfazed" even after witnessing the beheading of a man as he was "an enemy of Islam," seemingly had a change of heart and begged for forgiveness, lamenting that she was completely alone."I have no real friends," she said. "I have lost all the friends who came with me. Now I do not have anyone."
She said she only supported ISIS ideals when interviewed because she was scared for her life. "When I came to this new camp a lot of dangerous women thought I was on their side," she explained. "But it was a facade to protect me and my son. Now they have figured it out and they hate me."
"I would like to be at home," she pleaded. "There is more safety in a British prison, more education and access to family. I want to be taken back and put on trial in my own country. In a way, it is already a punishment being in this camp."