UK Daesh bride should be allowed in: Opposition leader

By Muhammad Mussa

LONDON

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has said that a British teenager who joined Daesh in 2015 should be allowed to return to the U.K., questioning the Home Office's decision to revoke her passport.

The opposition party leader supported Shamima Begum's plea to return to Britain and argued that she should be investigated over her allegiance to the terrorist group.

"She was born in Britain, she has that right to remain in Britain and obviously a lot of questions she has to answer but also some support that she needs," Corbyn said to ITV News, when asked about the 19-year-old.

"She obviously has in my view a right to return to Britain. On that return she must face a lot of questions about everything she's done. And at that point any action may or may not be taken," Corbyn added.

He said the decision to strip anyone born in the U.K. of their citizenship was a “very extreme manoeuvre”.

Begum was 15 years old when she and her three friends travelled to Syria and joined Daesh in their former capital Raqqa. There she married a Dutch fighter and gave birth to two children, both of whom have since passed away.

Last weekend, she gave birth to her third child at a refugee camp in northern Syria and shortly after gave an interview to Sky News in which she pleaded to people in the U.K. to have sympathy and allow her to return for the sake of her newborn son.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has however resisted pressure to allow her return and has repeatedly stated that British citizens who have joined Daesh will be prevented from returning to the U.K.

Shortly after the decision by the Home Office, the government of Bangladesh refused to grant Begum citizenship arguing that although her parents were citizens, she herself was not a citizen and had never visited the country before.

Begum said she was disappointed but not surprised when she heard of the Home Office decision to revoke her citizenship and said that she would pursue citizenship in the Netherlands, her husband's country of origin.