CITIZENSHIP: FROM RIGHT TO PRIVILEGE > In 2009, the good character test, previously used only for naturalisation, was applied to applicants for registration, including children of ten.37 The impact of deprivation on individuals Deprivation of citizenship means the loss of home, family, protection and belonging. It can lead to loss of liberty and even life. The impact of deprivation of citizenship on the individual has been demonstrated by what has happened to some former British citizens: > Mahdi Hashi, a British citizen who had lived in the UK from infancy, went to Somalia, where he was married with children. He was going to come back to the UK, but in Djibouti he was arrested. When he said he was a British citizen he was told ‘not any more’; he was kidnapped and taken to New York to stand trial;38 > At least two men, Mohamed Sakr and Bilal al-Berjawi, were killed by US drone strikes after losing their British citizenship;39 > Many women who were trafficked as children from the UK to Syria, or forced to go by violent or coercive husbands, are stranded in intolerable conditions in prison camps after being stripped of British citizenship;40 > As the Joint Committee on Human Rights has said, deprivation of citizenship could expose subjects to inhuman and degrading treatment, loss of liberty, loss of family life and loss of one’s home.41 The impact on communities The adverse effects of the deprivation powers and their use spread a lot further than the individuals subjected to orders and their families, deep into the communities from which they come, and into society as a whole: > As Lord Ahmed said ‘… many young British Muslims already feel disenfranchised. These proposals would only compound those feelings, making their “Britishness” seem like a temporary state, removable at will, rather than a permanent part of their identity. This could seriously damage community relations which are already very strained’; 42 37 Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act, s 47; Home Office guidance: Nationality: good character requirement (2020). The 2009 Act also introduced a complicated scheme for ‘probationary citizenship leave’ the length of which depended on among other things the voluntary activities would-be citizens undertook, but it has never been implemented although it remains on the statute book. 38 See speeches of Frank Dobson and Baroness Kennedy in Parliament, at HC Deb 30 January 2014, vol 574, col 1094 and HL Deb 10 February 2014, vol 752, col 484. 39 ‘“Medieval exile”: the 42 Britons stripped of their citizenship’, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 26 February 2013 (updated, nd). 40 See Report of Inquiry by All Party Parliamentary Group on Trafficked Britons in Syria, February 2022; Reprieve submission to Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, March 2022. 41 JCHR inquiry into counter-terrorism policy and human rights, Third report of 2005-06, para 159. 42 Lord Ahmed, HL Deb 6 December 2005, Vol 676, col 562. 13