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Updated September 15th, 2021 at 18:28 IST

Shamima Begum, who lost UK citizenship on joining ISIS, appeals to Boris govt for return

Shamima Begum, a former Brit schoolgirl whose citizenship was revoked after she fled her east London home to join ISIS in Syria, begged the UK for forgiveness

Reported by: Gloria Methri
ISIS bride wants to return home in UK
AP | Image:self
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Shamima Begum, a British-born woman whose citizenship had been revoked after she fled her east London home to join the Islamic State Group in Syria, has begged the public for forgiveness. 

Begum has been trying to return to the UK, where she grew up, since 2019, but the Home Office revoked her British citizenship in 2020 on security grounds, stating that she should never be allowed to return.

During her first-ever live interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, Shamima Begum promised to aid the authorities in their fight against ISIS terrorists in the UK and is willing to face any legal consequences for her decision as long as she could return home.

“I am willing to go to court and face the people who made these claims and refute them because I know I did nothing in ISIS but be a mother and a wife," stated Begum, dressed in a grey vest top and a Nike baseball cap. 

Looking back to her decision to flee in 2015, Begum, explained how she thought that she was “doing the right thing as a Muslim” by joining ISIS, supposedly unaware it was a “death cult”.

“At the time, I did not know it was a death cult, I thought it was an Islamic community that I was joining, and at the time, I had just started becoming very religious." “I was being fed a lot of information on the internet by people in the organization telling me that I need to come, I can’t be a good Muslim in the UK, and that my family will drag me down with them,” she said. 

‘I'd rather die than return to ISIS'

Stating that there was “no evidence” to prove her role in the terrorist attacks on United Kingdom, Begum, now 22, said she wants to return to the UK to prove her innocence. “I would rather die than go back to IS [Islamic State]”, she said.

When asked about the bombing in 2019, Begum said that while it was wrong to kill innocent people, ISIS considered the bombing justified in retaliation to the coalition bombing of ISIS-held areas.

“I am completely sorry for anyone that has been affected by the ISIS and in no way agree or try to justify what they did,” she said.“It’s not justifiable to kill innocent people in the name of religion. I just want to apologize. I am sorry.”

Shamima Begum also apologized for her previous comments defending the bombing of Manchester Arena, in which 22 people including children were killed and more than 1,000 were injured.

Appeal to PM Johnson

During her interview with Good Morning Britain, she appealed to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to let her re-enter the UK and stand trial.

“You are clearly struggling with terrorism and extremism in your country. I want to help by telling you my own experiences with these extremists with what they say and how they persuade people to come to places like Syria. I think I could very much help you in your fight against terrorism because you clearly don’t know what you’re doing,” she said. 

In 2015, she left the UK with two other schoolgirls at the age of 15 to join ISIS in war-torn Syria. She was found nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019 after which the then-home secretary, Sajid Javid, canceled her British citizenship on security grounds. 

Following her interview this week, the former UK health secretary has defended the decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship as “absolutely right” and hit back at her claims that she played no part in ISIS terrorism.

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Published September 15th, 2021 at 18:28 IST

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