The Bangladeshi father of ISIS bride Shamima Begum has said the British government was right to strip her citizenship, and that it is her own fault she stuck in Syria.
60-year-old Ahmed Ali migrated to the United Kingdom with Begum’s mother, who is also Bangladeshi, in the 1970s, but now splits his time between Britain and his native country, where he keeps a second wife.
Ali was tracked down at his Bangladeshi home in the Sunamganj, in the country’s north-east, by the Mail on Sunday — but, unlike her mother Asma, who is trying to have Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to strip their jihadi daughter of her British citizenship, he says he is “on the side of the Government.”
“I can’t say whether it is right or wrong [that Begum lost her British citizenship], but if the law of the land says that it is correct to cancel her citizenship, then I agree,” he said,
“I know [the British government] don’t want to take her back, and in this I don’t have a problem,” Ali told the newspaper.
“I know she is stuck [in Syria] but that’s because she has done actions that made her get stuck like this,” he added matter of factly, appearing to echo the sentiments of most ordinary Britons — 78 percent of whom believe she should be barred from the country, according to a Sky Data poll — who believe the Islamist “made her bed”.
ISIS Bride Vows Son 'Will Grow Up to Be a Jihadist' as Crumbling Caliphate Evacuated https://t.co/eO75y6pRU9
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 23, 2019
Under British law, the Home Secretary — a post currently held by Sajid Javid, a British-born Muslim of Pakistani heritage himself — can strip someone’s citizenship if they are a citizen of another country as well, or eligible to become one, if he is satisfied their continued presence in the United Kingdom would “not be conducive to the public good”.
The minister’s decision is subject to the courts, however, which set a very high bar for this criteria.
The Government has already stripped or attempted to strip a small number of terrorists and serious criminals such as grooming gang members, although many more criminals who might be stripped are allowed to stay, and hundreds of ISIS volunteers, in particular, have already returned to Britain’s streets.
Begum’s supporters have attempted to claim that it is Britain’s “responsibility” to take in Begum, and that she has nothing to do with her parents’ native Bangladesh because, as far as we know, she was not born there.
Paradoxically, however, they also claim that Britain has a responsibility to Begum’s Syria-born son — named after an Islamic warlord at his jihadist father’s request — because her mother had a British passport.
UK Facing ISIS Bride Influx as More Than a Dozen Show Up at Syrian Camps https://t.co/xwxkCUeUF1
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 21, 2019
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