Overview

Shamima Begum's United Kingdom Citizenship Controversy refers to the United Kingdom's decision to deny citizenship to Shimima Begum, after she left the United Kingdom to join the terrorist organization ISIS in early December 2014.

Background

On December 6th, 2014, Begum began her journey to Syria. Two weeks later, Begum told her father she did not plan on returning to the United Kingdom and that she had joined the "Islamic State."^[1] On August 1st, 2015, Vice News released a video titled "The Girls Who Fled To Syria: Groomed By The Islamic State," in which Begum is featured as one of three girls who became "jihadi brides" in Syria (shown below). Within four years, the video gained upwards of 1.3 million views and 4,400 comments.

Developments

United Kingdom Citizenship

On February 13th, 2019, the news site The Times^[3] published an interview with Begum, in which she revealed "Now all I want to do is come home to Britain."

On February 20th, 2019, the ITV News YouTube channel uploaded an interview with Begum, in which she read a letter from informing her that she lost her United Kingdom citizenship (shown below). That day, the video accumulated upwards of 410,000 views.

Harvey Price Meme

On February 17th, 2019, model Katie Price posted a photoshopped picture of Begum with her son Harvey's face superimposed over the image along with the caption "Let me back / you cunts," in reference to the "Hello, You Cunt" meme (shown below). Additionally, the post included a message by Price calling for "online abuse" to be made a crime punishable by law. Within 72 hours, the post gained over 29,100 likes and

Search Interest

External References