A terror watchdog has said Britain’s continued refusal to repatriate ISIS suspects such as Shamima Begum could put the UK at “longer-term risk” of terrorist attacks.
The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall, KC, said the UK’s approach to British-linked ISIS individuals could leave it out of step with other countries—now repatriating citizens—and could create a “Britain’s Guantanamo” in Syria.
He added that Britain’s policy of removing citizenship and limiting the assistance it will give to UK citizens in Syria was now “at a crossroads.”
“UK repatriation would not solve the presence of IS in the region,” Hall said, using an alternative name for ISIS.
“Were all UK-linked travellers to be brought home tomorrow, thousands and thousands would remain in detention, perhaps amongst them a future Sayyid Qutb or Al-Baghdadi plotting the next chapter of Islamist violence.
“So any additional risk arising from a continuing UK presence in the camps might be marginal.
“But non-repatriation comes with its own UK-specific risks, or perhaps more accurately, if repatriation is going to happen at some point in time, ’twere well it were done quickly.'”
Referencing “UK-linked children” who remain in Syrian camps, Hall said the less time spent being “incubated as Cubs of the Caliphate”—an active ISIS programme—“the better.”
“Allied to this,” Hall said, “managed return, with proper preparation, reception committees, police with risk management plans in place, local authorities primed to undertake safeguarding, wider family members engaged, is better than chaotic return.
“Finally, it is eminently foreseeable from the language that is already being used by NGOs and campaigning organisations, that the non-return of UK-linked individuals may become a source of exploitable grievance amongst those who wish us harm.
“If the UK stood alone, then ‘Europe’s Guantanamo’ would soon become ‘Britain’s Guantanamo.’
“This is a factor that cannot, I think, be discounted, when talking about longer-term risk to the UK.”
Illegal Detention
“Europe’s Guantanamo” refers to the indefinite detention of European women and children in Kurdish-run detention camps in northeast Syria.In 2020, human rights group Rights and Security International (RSI) published a hard-hitting report calling for their immediate repatriation.
It accused European governments of creating “Europe’s Guantanamo” where, at that time, some 640 European children and 230 European women accused of supporting ISIS were being held illegally without charge or the possibility of a trial.
“There are more European children currently detained in the detention camps than the entire population of Guantanamo Bay at its peak,” the RSI report stated.
“And most of these children are under five years old.
“Like Guantanamo, they have no legal rights or protections while being forced to endure inhumane and brutal conditions.”
The most infamous UK detainee currently there is jihadi bride Shamima Begum, who in February failed in a legal bid to have her British citizenship restored.
Begum was 15 years old when she travelled from Bethnal Green, east London, through Turkey, and into ISIS-controlled territory in Syria.
There, she married an ISIS fighter—Dutch-born Yago Riedijk—and lived in Raqqa.
She remained in Raqqa for four years, until she was discovered in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019. Her British citizenship was revoked shortly after she was found.
Begum was nine months pregnant at the time.
The three children she had given birth to since leaving the UK have all passed away.
She is currently living at Roj camp in northern Syria, which is run by a militia group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces.
In November 2020, the UK Supreme Court ruled she could not return to Britain to appeal the decision to revoke her citizenship.
In February, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission fully dismissed the 23-year-old’s legal challenge against the Home Office decision to revoke her status as a UK citizen.
It means Begum won’t be able to return to the UK.
Treachery and Betrayal
Referencing Begum in his speech, Hall told Kings College London that much of the debate concerning her case “is about moral fault.”He said: “Terrorism is a moral and indeed emotional subject, particularly and rightly for those who are its victims.
“Dialogue is coloured by notions of treachery and betrayal.
“I don’t suggest these notions are irrelevant in a democracy where decisions must be explained to an anxious and affronted public.
“But cold, hard risk management is different, and repatriation, if it took place, should not be confused with moral absolution.”
According to Hall, there are currently an estimated 60 UK-linked women and children currently in Syrian detention camps, along with an unknown number of men.
Acknowledging the argument by MI5 about the risk that ISIS Britons pose, he pointed out that the British in these camps are in limbo and that decisions about their status need to be made.
The decision point “could come sooner than expected through U.S. and allied pressure, Turkish military activity, court rulings, or natural disasters,” he said.
He added: “Compared to men, women are less likely to have travelled for the purpose of fighting, are less likely to have played battlefield roles, may well have had less autonomy in being able to leave and now make up the majority of those UK-linked individuals detained.
“Women with children may also fear child protection measures being taken against them ... mitigating against further terrorist engagement.”
Hall said he has “no answer” to the argument that this may be discriminatory, undermine female agency, or fail to recognise the roles of female terrorists.
However, he said statistics have shown that men were predominantly involved in terrorism plots.
If repatriation for the likes of Begum was to happen, he said, it will be necessary to work through the “immigration consequences of deprivation,” putting the burden back on the domestic counter-terrorism legislation, with possible amendments to the temporary exclusion order regime.
“Even if the UK sped up repatriation of women and children in line with other Western nations and committed to the eventual emptying out of men from camps and prisons, few could blame ministers for invoking the famous prayer of St. Augustine: in due course, but not yet,” he said.
“At least returning women and children now would open up space to consider options for the few detained men who remain such as proactive investigation to determine whether terrorist or disruptive prosecution is really impossible; and planning for the use of temporary exclusion orders and, in appropriate cases, TPIMs [terrorism prevention and investigation measures].”
