Tag Archives: nationality

Mark Valladares

The Shamima Begum case – why liberals should be defending her rights, if not her freedom

By Mark Valladares | Mon 1st March 2021 - 4:17 pm

I ought to start by expressing the view that, regardless of what Shamima Begum has, or has not, done, I have little sympathy for her. And, for all the suggestions that she was groomed, or that she was too young to understand what she was doing, Liberal Democrat policy is to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to fourteen from its current level of ten years of age. If she has committed an offence punishable under law, then she should be tried and, if found guilty, sentenced appropriately.

But the Government are arguing something rather different. They suggest that her citizenship can be taken away from her because she is “a bad person” and a threat to national security. That may be true, but the United Kingdom is also a signatory to the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Article 8 of the 1961 Convention outlines how and when a State may withdraw nationality, opening with the sentence;

A Contracting State shall not deprive a person of its nationality if such deprivation would render him stateless.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 27 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Simon Robinson
    London isn't all the same. I think what @Josh says is broadly true of central London out to maybe TfL Zone 4, where much of the population is young, transient, ...
  • Simon Robinson
    @Peter Davies: I think you're probably correct. Checking on MapIt, it looks like the Holborn and St Pancras constituency contains Euston, St Pancras and Kings C...
  • Maurice Leeke
    In the words of Max Boyce “I was there”. I found your rendition of “Ode to Joy” at An Talla Mhòr very moving. To my shame I didn’t recognise you, I...
  • William Wallace
    Was the Gaelic spoken in the SouthWest of Scotland the same variant? I understood that this was a Celtic version closer to Welsh. Wallace means Welsh, for what ...
  • Peter Davies
    Zack Polanski has now said he will stand. We really need to take him on directly....