UK govt to uphold citizenship revocation in Shamima Begum case

The former Home Secretary Sajid Javed had stripped Begum of the citizenship, citing national security threats.

United Kingdom (UK) Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has vowed to defend the decision to strip the citizenship of a woman who fled to Syria to join the Islamic State.

The decision comes after thehe European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) asked the Home Office whether ministers considered Begum was a victim of trafficking. According to a report by the British Broadcast Corporation.

“The home secretary will robustly defend the decision to revoke Shamima Begum’s citizenship, which has been tested and upheld time and again in our domestic courts,” an official was quoted as saying by the BBC.

In 2025, the Strasbourg court posed questions to the UK government on whether it broke anti-trafficking obligations when it stripped Begum of her citizenship in 2019.

The questions include whether the government violated Article 4 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits slavery, servitude and forced labour, as well as a state’s duty to prevent and investigate trafficking.

The former Home Secretary Sajid Javed had stripped Begum of the citizenship, citing national security threats. The decision came after his office argued that the deprivation was “conducive to the public good” and she posed a threat to the UK.

Javid also justified the decision to strip her British citizenship, stating that Begum qualified for a Bangladeshi passport because of her parents’ heritage, despite never visiting or living in the South Asian country.

Shamima Begum flees to Syria

Begum made headlines in 2015, after she fled to Syria along with two friends from her residence in east London. The woman reappeared in 2019, when she was pregnant and living in the Islamic State territory. Since then, Begum has been in a legal battle with the UK to regain citizenship.

Lawyers allege discrepancies in order

According to a report, in their application to the Strasbourg court, Begum’s lawyers said the decision violated Article 4 of the ECHR and that the UK authorities failed to ask four questions before stripping her citizenship.

These questions include whether she had been trafficked to Syria; whether British authorities failed to protect her; whether her deprivation of citizenship would undermine any future investigation into potential trafficking; and, if trafficking issues were present, whether deprivation could be justified on national-security grounds.

Birnberg Peirce, the law firm that is representing Begum, described the ECHR’s intervention as an “unprecedented opportunity” for the UK government to assess whether previous administrations ignored or sidestepped the considerations to be taken into account to strip her of her citizenship.

“Strasbourg’s communication presents an unprecedented opportunity for the UK as well as for Ms Begum to grapple with the significant considerations raised in her case and ignored, sidestepped or violated up to now by previous UK administrations,” said lawyer Gareth Peirce.