31 Facts About Shamima Begum

Shamima Begum was born on 25 August 1999 and is a British-born woman who entered Syria to join the Islamic State at the age of 15 in 2015.

Ten days after her arrival, Shamima Begum married a 23-year-old fellow IS member; the marriage produced three children, who all died young.

In February 2019, Shamima Begum was discovered alive at the al-Hawl refugee camp in Northern Syria by war correspondent Anthony Loyd.

Shamima Begum initiated legal proceedings challenging the lawfulness of this decision.

Shamima Begum was born in London to immigrant parents of Bangladeshi Muslim origin and citizenship.

Shamima Begum was raised in the Bethnal Green area of Tower Hamlets in East London, where she received her secondary education at the Bethnal Green Academy.

Shortly after her departure, Shamima Begum's sister expressed hope that she and her school friends had travelled to IS territory only to bring back their friend Sharmeena Shamima Begum, who had travelled there in 2014.

Ten days after arriving in Syria, Shamima Begum married Dutch-born Yago Riedijk, a convert to Islam who had arrived in Syria in October 2014.

Shamima Begum gave birth to three children, all of whom died young; her youngest child was born in a refugee camp in February 2019 and, by March 2019, had died of a lung infection.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Shamima Begum had been an "enforcer" in ISIS's "morality police", and had tried to recruit other young women to join the jihadist group.

Later, investigative journalist Josh Baker posed as an ISIS member and was able to speak with the person responsible for convincing Shamima Begum to join the group.

Shamima Begum received hundreds of pages of secret files on the smuggler that revealed the man at the heart of the network, Mohammed Rashed, was conducting an intelligence operation.

Shamima Begum was pregnant with her third child and said that she wanted to return to the UK to raise her children, but did not regret her decision to join IS.

Shamima Begum said she had been unfazed by seeing the head of a beheaded man as he was "an enemy of Islam", but believed that IS did not deserve victory because of their corruption and oppression.

Shamima Begum was interviewed by BBC correspondent Quentin Sommerville on 18 February 2019.

Shamima Begum said she had been partly inspired to join IS by videos of fighters beheading hostages and of "the good life" under the group.

On 1 March 2019, her lawyer confirmed that Shamima Begum had been moved to al-Roj refugee camp for her safety.

In 2021, Shamima Begum cooperated with investigative journalist Josh Baker and gave what she claims is her full account of what happened.

Shamima Begum is featured in a film of the same name.

However, the UK government contended that Shamima Begum was a dual national, holding citizenship of Bangladesh, and was not therefore made stateless by the decision.

The Government of Bangladesh stated that Shamima Begum did not currently hold Bangladeshi citizenship and, without it, would not be allowed to enter Bangladesh.

However, the British courts later accepted the argument that Shamima Begum was indeed a citizen of Bangladesh from birth.

Under British law, Shamima Begum had the right to appeal against the Home Office's decision to revoke her UK citizenship.

Shamima Begum said that he wished to return to the Netherlands with Begum.

Shamima Begum said "Shamima knew when she made the decision to join Daesh, she was going into a country where there was no embassy, there was no consular assistance, and I'm afraid those decisions, awful though it is, they do have consequences".

Shamima Begum said that the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development were trying to rescue IS brides and that the decisions to deprive individuals of UK citizenship were based on evidence.

Tasnime Akunjee, lawyer for the Shamima Begum family, said he had obtained a hearing in November 2022 to challenge the removal of Shamima Begum's citizenship on the basis that as Home Secretary, Sajid Javid had failed to consider that she was a victim of human trafficking.

In 2019 Shamima Begum was stripped of her UK citizenship, by Sajid Javid while he was Home Secretary for the Conservative Party government.

Shamima Begum was born a British citizen under United Kingdom law as her father had indefinite leave to remain and so had the "settled in the United Kingdom" status that the British Nationality Act 1981 describes as being a satisfactory prerequisite to allow Shamima Begum to be born a British citizen.

However, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission found that as a matter of Bangladeshi nationality law Shamima Begum holds Bangladeshi citizenship through her parents, under section 5 of the Citizenship Act, 1951.

In May 2019, Bangladeshi foreign minister Abdul Momen repeated his position on Shamima Begum and added that if she entered Bangladesh she would face the death penalty due to the nation's "zero tolerance policy" towards terrorism.