CITIZENSHIP: FROM RIGHT TO PRIVILEGE The outcry caused by the teenager’s apparent callousness and lack of remorse (later explained by her as due to the presence of ‘extremists’ in the camp, who had threatened her) fuelled a media campaign to prevent her return: > ‘You’ve made your bed, now lie in it’, was the response of a Telegraph columnist to Begum’s plea to be allowed to return home; 63 > A similar response came from the Express, the Mail and the Sun; 64 > Home secretary Sajid Javid added fuel to the fire, telling the Times two days after her interview that he would stop the return of anyone who supported terrorist groups abroad; 65 > He repeated the message in a piece for the Sunday Times two days later and then told parliament the same thing the day after; 66 > The day after that, six days after her interview, he revoked her citizenship,67 and was applauded by the tabloid press;68 > The following week, a Merseyside shooting range used her image as a target; 69 > Her family’s lawyer was attacked in the media,70 was threatened with murder and received social media posts telling him to kill himself and to ‘fuck off to Syria’. 71 The speed of the deprivation decision and the apparent disregard for any ‘human’ factors in Begum’s case endorsed her treatment as a popular hate figure for whom no compassion was possible. Of course, the attitude she displayed to the crimes of ISIS in the early interviews was abhorrent – but lifelong banishment from the country of her birth and only effective nationality seems a terrifyingly disproportionate response, and one which is wrong in principle. Factors militating against deprivation which appear to have been disregarded include: > > > > her youth, and the fact that she was a child when she left for Syria; her status as a victim of the well-known sophisticated online grooming practices of ISIS; her birth and upbringing in the UK; her lack of connection with Bangladesh, of which she was said to be a citizen (denied by the Bangladesh authorities and still in issue); > the lack of evidence of any actions on her part which would support a criminal prosecution, and the lack of any attempt to bring charges against her; > the circumstances of the Times and Sky News interviews; > the inhumane and life-threatening conditions in the prison camp; 63 Telegraph, 14 February 2019. 64 Express, 15 February 2019; Mail, 18 February 2019; Sun, 18 February 2019. 65 100,000 back petition to ban ISIS members returning too UK amid Brit schoolgirl Shamima Begum row’, Birmingham Mail, 15 February 2019. 66 HC Deb 18 February 2019, vol 654, col 1193. 67 Guardian, 19 February 2019. 68 See Roy Greenslade, ‘Sajid Javid is pandering to rightwing press over Shamima Begum’, Guardian, 24 February 2019. 69 ‘Shooting range criticised for Shamima Begum target’, BBC News, 27 February 2019. 70 ‘ISIS bride’s lawyer blamed Britain’, Mail 18 February 2019. 71 Independent, 27 February 2019. 18