If we deny Shamima Begum her human rights, we should all fear for our own

Editorial: That Ms Begum was herself allegedly a voluntary activist in a vicious regime that routinely tortured and killed in medieval fashion doesn’t cancel her own human rights

An undated file photo of Shamima Begum, whose baby son was confirmed dead in March last year (PA)

Civilised societies enshrine human rights in law not because it is easy or politically popular – it rarely is – but because it is the right thing to do.

They subscribe to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the same reason and, in the case of European states, they subscribe to the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights (which has nothing to do with the European Union).

Human rights are not there for the easy cases but for the difficult ones, those where the individuals involved are far from heroic and indeed represent a potential threat to national security. Cases, in other words, such as that of Shamima Begum.

Many people find it intolerable that those associated with terrorism, such as Ms Begum, should be granted the same basic rights as any other citizen. Clearly the former home secretary, Sajid Javid, felt the same way, and went so far as to square the human rights circle by depriving Ms Begum of her British citizenship, rendering her at least potentially stateless and stranded with a child in a Syrian refugee camp. The only other option open to Ms Begum was to take up Bangladeshi citizenship, by dint of her family background, but the Bangladeshi government summarily rejected the idea. Therefore she has been stateless for some time. That, and her geographical situation, made it impossible for her to get a fair hearing in a British Court, so the High Court decided.

Controversial as the case is, and distasteful to many, the High Court had little choice but to allow Ms Begum the opportunity to make her argument in the way anyone else would be allowed. The High Court went no further than that – Ms Begum’s citizenship and any other legal consequences of her actions remain very much in the balance. It is a narrow but important finding centred on the issues of citizenship and the right to a fair trial. There was no pressing need, other than a political one, to prevent Ms Begum from returning to the UK and facing the consequences for her time spent in Isis. Although not forming part of the case, Ms Begum’s youngest child was born in the Syrian camp and died a few weeks later; there is no greater human right than that of a child.

That Ms Begum was herself allegedly a voluntary activist in a vicious regime that routinely tortured and killed in medieval fashion doesn’t cancel her own human rights, still less those of her baby. Her husband, Yago Riedijk, a Dutch national, is detained in another camp in Syria and wants to return home to the Netherlands.

Ms Begum is no one’s idea of a poster girl for human rights but, ironically, that is the point of human rights – they are there for the most despised people in society to be dealt with properly and through due process. Otherwise we all lose the protection of the rule of law because it can be arbitrarily removed, along with everything else connected to citizenship. That is why the Begum case matters.

The government intends to appeal the matter, which is its right, but it may prove to be a futile, political gesture. In a wider political context the concern must be that the home secretary, Priti Patel, already under some personal pressure because of her conduct in office, uses the Begum case for her own ends and to further the government’s authoritarian instincts. The Conservative manifesto only last December carried a chilling but barely noticed pledge to “update” the 1998 Human Rights Act, probably a euphemism for shredding it – human rights are after all eternal and do not need updating. The Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum, fronted by Boris Johnson and run by Dominic Cummings, went so far as to promise to withdraw from the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Human rights are under attack across the world, in dictatorships and democracies alike, including in Britain.