LONDON: A British man who went stateless in 2017 was stripped of his citizenship, reinstated after a lengthy court battle.
The man, identified as E3 in court documents, was stripped of his citizenship in 2017 when he was in Bangladesh for the birth of his daughter.
In a citizenship deprivation order sent to his mother’s UK address, the government alleged that she was “an Islamic extremist who had previously sought to travel abroad to participate in terrorism-related activity.”
It said he was considered a threat to national security and would not be allowed to return to the UK.
His lawyers were not given any evidence of criminal activity on which the decision was based because it was “secret”.
Five years later, the government has restored the man’s citizenship, but he faces another court battle to grant his daughter UK nationality.
“I never thought I would win my case; Not because I am guilty of anything, but because the system is set up to defeat you,” the London-born but of Bangladeshi heritage told The Independent.
“It was incredibly difficult. It’s something you can’t prepare for — you’re suddenly cut off from your home, your family and friends, your job and source of income, and everything else you take lightly.” Huh.
“I was trapped in a country where a family was financially dependent on me and I had no way of providing for them.”
He said he felt helpless and in danger from the Bangladeshi government. “If they found out that the British government had charged me with terrorism, they would probably detain and torture me, as they routinely do with terrorism suspects,” E3 added.
“I was sent into exile for a crime of which I was not told; I had not been brought before a judge, I had not even seen the evidence, so there was absolutely no hope of a positive outcome of my appeal. ,
The UK government is currently attempting to push the Nationality and Boundaries Bill through parliament, which would make it much easier to remove citizenship from those deemed a threat to national security.
The bill has proven controversial – if enacted, nearly half of all British Asians and two in five blacks would be eligible to have British citizenship revoked, potentially at short notice.
Anas Mustafa of the advocacy group Cage, which is supporting E3’s family, told The Independent that E3’s case “highlights the brutal nature of citizenship deprivation”, which he said was “almost exclusively for Muslims and Affects people of color.”
The Good Law Project published advice on the bill, which is currently being reviewed by the House of Lords, and concluded that if it becomes law it will have “disproportionate effects on non-white British citizens.”