LONDON – A U.K. woman who as a teenager ran away to join the Islamic State group won the right Thursday to return to Britain to fight for the restoration of her citizenship, which was revoked on national security grounds.
Shamima Begum was one of three east London schoolgirls who traveled to Syria in 2015. She resurfaced at a refugee camp in Syria and told reporters she wanted to come home, but was denied the chance after Former Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her citizenship.
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He argued that she was Bangladeshi by descent and could go there.
She challenged the decision, arguing she is not the citizen of another country and that Javid’s decision left her stateless.
“Ms Begum is not afraid of facing British justice. She welcomes it,'' her lawyer, Daniel Furner, said in a statement after the ruling. “But the stripping of her citizenship without a chance to clear her name is not justice — it is the opposite.”