Shamima Begum's successful appeal signals hope for other European Isis suspects held in Syrian camps

Despite dire conditions in northeast Syria's camps, most countries, including the UK, have brought home only small numbers of their citizens, usually orphans or young children, says Letta Tayler

(ABC News)

This week an appeals panel in London cracked the wall of resistance by most Western governments to bringing home citizens held as Isis suspects in northeast Syria. Local authorities have detained these citizens and their family members without charge for more than a year, in conditions that are at best appalling and at worst inhuman and life threatening. Most are women and children.

The Court of Appeal found that the UK government had denied a fair and effective appeal to UK-born Shamima Begum when it revoked her citizenship last year for joining Isis in Syria. It said Begum, now 20, could not effectively challenge the stripping of her citizenship from a locked camp in northeast Syria. It ordered the government to stop blocking her re-entry to the UK so that she could do so on home soil.

The court also affirmed that detention conditions in northeast Syria meet the threshold of inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It found that the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Tribunal had earlier failed to consider whether Begum’s citizenship deprivation increased her risk of mistreatment or threats to her life.