The government has risked a diplomatic rift with Bangladesh over the fate of Islamic State recruit Shamima Begum.

The Home Office has stripped the 19-year-old of her British citizenship to dash her hopes of returning to the UK to raise her baby son, who she recently gave birth to in Syrian refugee camp.

Although he has not commented directly on the case, Home Secretary Sajid Javid seemed to confirm on Wednesday the government felt able to take such action because she is a dual national or has the right to citizenship elsewhere.

Under international law, it is illegal for a country to make someone stateless by removing their citizenship.

Shamima Begum is believed to be a dual British-Bangladeshi national, although her family's lawyer has said the UK-born teenager of Bangladeshi heritage has never had a Bangladeshi passport and is not a dual citizen.


The Bangladeshi government has now also declared Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and that she is a British citizen by birth and has never applied for dual nationality with Bangladesh.

The country's foreign minister, Shahrial Alam, added there is no question of her being allowed to enter into Bangladesh.

Earlier, Mr Javid suggested Shamima Begum's son can be British - and allowed into the UK - despite his mother being barred.

He hinted her child's right to be British would be unaffected by his department's action.

Answering an urgent question in the Commons, he told MPs: "Children should not suffer, so if a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child.

"Deprivation is a powerful tool that can only be used to keep the most dangerous individuals out of this country and we do not lose it lightly.

"But when someone turns their back on the fundamental values and supports terror, they don't have an automatic right to return to the UK.

"We must put the safety and the security of our country first and I will not hesitate to act to protect it."

Mr Javid insisted the government had to make "tough decisions" to keep the UK safe, adding: "There must be consequences for those that back terror."

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With around 40% of the 900 people who travelled from the UK to Syria and Iraq having now returned, Mr Javid said those who have come back had all been investigated and the majority pose no or a low security risk.

A similar number - including Shamima Begum, who travelled to Syria as a schoolgirl in 2015 - remain in the region, with Mr Javid telling MPs: "Those who stayed include some of the most dangerous, including many who supported terrorism.

"Not least those who chose to fight or to raise families in the so-called caliphate.

"They turned their back on this country to support a group that butchered and beheaded innocent civilians, including British citizens.

"That tied the arms of homosexuals and threw them off the top of buildings, and that raped countless young girls, boys and women."

Mr Javid stressed the removal of British citizenship "is only used in extreme circumstances, where conducive to the public good".

Labour's shadow home secretary Diane Abbott suggested Mr Javid was in breach of the 1948 United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality".

On the case of Shamima Begum, Ms Abbott said: "The home secretary knows the Home Office has lost two cases where they attempted to strip people of their nationality on this basis of Bangladeshi nationality by descent.

"They lost. Why is he going forward with the same strategy now?"

Mr Javid replied: "It would be just wrong to take one particular case that may have been in the courts and to apply that all other potential cases that follow that."

He suggested government lawyers had taken into account previous court rulings before providing advice on Shamima Begum's case.

Mr Javid also stressed it is "incredibly important that all governments abide" by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that decisions to deprive British citizenship are "anything but arbitrary".

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Sir Ed Davey, who asked the urgent question of Mr Javid, said: "Surely a British citizen, born in Britain, is a British responsibility?"

On Twitter, Sir Ed later accused Mr Javid of "pandering to the right wing press", adding: "I am convinced his legal case will be defeated."