British Muslims being reduced to 'second class' status by citizenship removal laws: report

British Muslims have been reduced to ‘second-class’ citizens in the United Kingdom, according to a report published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) on Sunday. 

Recently extended powers have given successive UK governments the power to remove citizenship from those who have access to another nationality. They “almost exclusively” target Muslims with South Asian heritage, according to the think tank. 

NEW REPORT 📄

Changes to citizenship laws ‘de-nationalise’ British Muslims

A new paper by IRR vice-chair @FrancesWebber5, shows how citizenship-stripping powers have enshrined a ‘second-class citizenship’ in the UK, mainly affecting British Muslims. https://t.co/9Tap7sy07Y

— Institute of Race Relations (@IRR_News) September 11, 2022

The report, written by the IRR's vice-chair Frances Webber, comes amid renewed controversy around Shamima Begum, the British Muslim who at 15 years old was smuggled into Syrian territory controlled by the Islamic State extremist group.

In February 2020, a tribunal ruled it was lawful for her UK citizenship to be revoked as she had access to Bangladeshi nationality through descent. However, it was recently reported that a spy working for the Canadian government was responsible for trafficking her to Syria

“The message sent by the legislation on deprivation of citizenship since 2002 and its implementation largely against British Muslims of South Asian heritage is that, despite their passports, these people are not and can never be ‘true’ citizens, in the same way that ‘natives’ are,” read the report. 

“While a ‘native’ British citizen, who has access to no other citizenship, can commit the most heinous crimes without jeopardising his right to remain British, none of the estimated six million British citizens with access to another citizenship can feel confident in the perpetual nature of their citizenship,” it continued. 

Even though the government has said that the laws would be used only against those who were judged to be threats to national security, the report also said that the reasons for losing one's citizenship have become more ‘nebulous and undefined’, thereby increasing the likelihood of the arbitrary action. 

No citizenship had been revoked in the thirty years prior to Abu Hamza, a Muslim preacher who was stripped of his nationality in 2003. Since then, the citizenship of at least 217 people has been removed, according to the report.