Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Britain risks creating new Guantánamo in Syria, says rights group

Britain risks creating new Guantánamo in Syria, says rights group

Charity Reprieve criticises government’s ‘abdication of responsibility’ over Shamima Begum
Britain risks creating “a new Guantánamo” in Syria by leaving Shamima Begum and others like her stranded in Syrian detention camps, it has been claimed, after the supreme court rejected Begum’s appeal against a decision to revoke her UK citizenship.

A key figure who has been involved with Begum’s case said the judgment left the 21-year-old in a legal limbo, unable to return to the UK or mount an effective challenge to the deprivation decision remotely.

Maya Foa, the director of the human rights charity Reprieve, said the supreme court had said Begum could in theory still challenge a decision to take away her citizenship, if she could find a way of instructing her lawyers.

“The court has said she can appeal [against] the citizenship decision, but they do not say how it can be done. It leaves her in the hands of the British government, which is unwilling to assist. That is less of a policy and more of an abdication of responsibility – unless the policy is to create a new Guantánamo in Syria,” Foa said.

Begum is understood to have been told of the court judgment, although very little of her personal story featured during the case. Supporters say she regrets her decision to leave the UK and is remorseful about her actions.

They argue that she was a minor when she was a victim of trafficking and was unable to leave Syria after she arrived in 2015, until she was detained by Kurdish fighters as the last of Islamic State’s territory was captured.

Her legal team has yet to decide what it might do next, including whether it will appeal to the European court of human rights.

An estimated 24 adults and 35 children who left Britain to join Isis are still detained in Syria at one of several camps run by Syrian Kurds, where conditions have been described as dire. Many of them have had their UK citizenship removed.

On Friday the supreme court decided unanimously to rule in favour of the home secretary and against Begum on all counts, in the latest stage of a long-running legal battle.

It means the 21-year-old will not be allowed to re-enter the UK to fight her case in person and cannot have her citizenship restored while she is detained in her current conditions, where she is unable to access a lawyer.

Lord Reed, the president of the supreme court, concluded that the lower court of appeal had substituted its own reasoning in place of the home secretary’s when deciding that Begum should be allowed to return to the UK to challenge the loss of her citizenship last July.

“Its approach did not give the home secretary’s assessment the respect which it should have received, given that it is the home secretary who has been charged by parliament with responsibility for making such assessments,” he said.

A two-day oral hearing in the case in November heard that Begum was still considered by MI5 as a national security risk because although she had travelled out as a minor, she had “aligned” herself with Isis.

But Reed’s judgment held out one remaining hope for Begum, concluding that the only fair response was for any final appeal against the decision to revoke her British citizenship to be held over until “Begum is in a position to play an effective part in it without the safety of the public being compromised”.

“That is not a perfect solution, as it is not known how long it may be before that is possible,” Reed said.

The conditions of Begum’s detention in a camp where she has been threatened with violence if she uses a mobile phone makes that unlikely without political intervention from the UK or elsewhere.

Begum was 15 when she left east London with two schoolfriends to join Isis in Syria six years ago. Although born and raised in the UK, Begum’s British citizenship was removed in 2019 by the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, shortly after she was found by a journalist in a prison camp.

British nationality law allows the home secretary to remove a person’s UK citizenship if doing so is deemed to be “conducive to the public good”. However, it is illegal to revoke a person’s nationality if doing so would leave them stateless.

Javid argued that she was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship, the birth country of her parents.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, said ministerial authority had been affirmed by the court. “The government will always take the strongest possible action to protect our national security and our priority remains maintaining the safety and security of our citizens,” she said.

As a teenager, Begum was married to an Isis fighter while she was embroiled in the Syrian conflict and had three children, all of whom have died. As Isis was defeated, she was captured by the Syrian Kurds in 2019 and has remained in detention without trial ever since.

Intelligence agencies estimate that 900 Britons travelled to Syria or Iraq to join Isis. Of these about 20% were killed and 40% returned home. The remainder are either missing or held in Kurdish camps, their UK citizenship often having been removed.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×