British aid workers in Syria are being stripped of their citizenship by the UK government, Middle East Eye has learnt. At least two aid workers based in northern Syria have been deprived of British citizenship on the grounds that they “present a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom”, according to recent letters sent to their families by Home Secretary Amber Rudd. In another case, a volunteer who has delivered aid into Syria and worked on charity-funded projects there was “assessed to have been involved in terrorism-related activity” and “Islamist extremist activities”. All three say they have never fought in Syria and none have been charged with any offence in the UK relating to their activities in the country. MEE is not revealing their identities because all are currently mounting legal appeals to have their citizenship restored. They deny having any links with militant groups, although the area in which they have worked on aid projects includes territory in Idlib province where various iterations of the formerly al-Qaeda-aligned Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have operated over several years. All three have demonstrable track records as aid workers and have liaised with numerous recognised charities and humanitarian organisations from the UK and elsewhere over the course of Syria’s war to facilitate the flow of supplies into rebel-held areas, as well as helping to run facilities for internally displaced Syrians.
One of those targeted told MEE that the letter sent to his family said that he was assessed to be “aligned with an al-Qaeda-aligned group”. “I am an aid worker. Everything I do is transparent. They believe I am affiliated with al-Qaeda which is ridiculous,” he said. “We risk our lives every day to help people and they call us terrorists.” Jahangir Mohammed, a consultant working with charities in the UK involved in sending aid to Syria, said the fact that the aid workers were operating in the same area as armed groups were present did not mean that they were “aligned” with the fighters. “Obviously there are 200 charities operating in that part of Syria and they come into contact with the fighters. The reality is that there are separate civilian authorities and networks that work with the charities. The fighters would not jeopardise the population turning against them by interfering with aid,” Mohammed told MEE. He pointed out that another humanitarian organisation operating in the same area, the Syria Civil Defence, commonly known as the White Helmets, had received funding from the British government. “In conflicts, propaganda against aid workers and charities is commonplace, even the White Helmets are regularly accused of being aligned to al-Qaeda. Charities, authorities and journalists need to be able to distinguish fact from propaganda.”
One of the aid workers told MEE that he had been allowed to travel between the UK and Syria several times earlier in the conflict despite regularly being questioned by counter-terrorism police about his activities at ports and airports. But he said his citizenship had only been removed once he had left the UK for an extended period. “I wasn’t assessed to be a threat then, and now I’m not in the country I am considered a threat. If I am a threat simply because I have been to Syria, then all they are doing is criminalising compassion,” he said.
Citizenship stripping is highly controversial and legally contentious in the UK, with civil liberties campaign group Liberty describing it as “a hallmark of oppressive and desperate regimes”, and human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce calling it a process akin to being cast into “medieval exile”. But the use of deprivation orders, which critics complain are typically issued when a person is out of the country, has withstood scrutiny at the European Court of Human Rights, where judges earlier this year rejected an appeal by a Sudan-born British citizen who said that losing his citizenship over terrorism concerns had been discriminatory and violated his right to a family life.
According to the British Nationality Act, which defines the circumstances under which someone born in the UK can be stripped of their citizenship, the home secretary can only utilise the power if they are satisfied that that deprivation “is conducive to the public good” and that doing so would not make a person stateless. Both of the aid workers currently in Syria were born in the UK and say they do not consider themselves citizens of any other country, although they are entitled to citizenship elsewhere through their parents. They say they are now effectively stateless in a war zone with no legal way out.
Source: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-british-aid-workers-syria-st…
