By Amy Walker

Locals express regret after home secretary revokes 19-year-old’s citizenship – but some have faith in state’s actions

Residents in Bethnal Green, east London, where Shamima Begum lived before going to Syria to join Islamic State, have expressed regret at the home secretary’s order to revoke her citizenship.

Abdur Rahman, a 55-year-old cab driver, who has lived in the area for 25 years, said: “The fact she was born here is one thing, but everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. Let her come back and prove herself. I think it will be hard and take a long time for people to …read more

Original content available at:

By Esther Addley

Home secretary says child born before citizenship stripped from teenager who fled to Syria

The rights of the baby son of Shamima Begum, the teenager who fled to Syria to marry an Isis fighter, are unaffected by the decision to strip her of her UK citizenship, the home secretary, Sajid Javid, has suggested.

Related: Javid’s decision on Shamima Begum demeans his office | Sonia Sodha

Related: Taking Shamima Begum’s citizenship risks making her a martyr | Robert Verkaik

Continue reading… …read more

Original content available at:

By Amy Walker

Teenager who travelled from London to Syria to join Isis says decision is ‘kind of heart-breaking’

Shamima Begum, the teenager who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, has described Home Office plans to strip her of citizenship as “kind of heart-breaking”.

Related: Shamima Begum: will the plan to revoke her citizenship succeed?

Related: Taking Shamima Begum’s citizenship risks making her a martyr | Robert Verkaik

Continue reading… …read more

Original content available at:

By Lisa Martin

Defence department face grilling over export of 500 taxpayer-subsidised remote weapons systems to Saudi Arabia

The Australian defence department can’t guarantee that Canberra-made remote weapons systems, that attracted a taxpayer subsidy, won’t be used in the bloody Yemen conflict.

Officials faced a grilling over military exports to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday following revelations Electro Optic Systems is exporting 500 of the systems to the Saudi interior ministry.

Related: Australia’s generous aid to Yemen mustn’t be undermined by its weapons sales | Jason Lee

Related: ‘The violence is unbearable’: medics in Yemen plead for help

In Riyadh with …read more

Original content available at:

By Felicity Lawrence and Ella McSweeney

System leaves migrant workers vulnerable to modern slavery, four UN special rapporteurs say

Ireland’s permit scheme for migrant workers on its fishing trawlers breaches international human rights law, four UN special rapporteurs have said in a warning letter to the Irish government.

Related: ‘We thought slavery had gone away’: African men exploited on Irish boats

Related: US criticises Ireland for insufficient action on modern slavery

Continue reading… …read more

Original content available at:

By Helen Davidson

Revelation by head of home affairs department comes as Nauru bans medical transfers based on telehealth assessments, threatening to derail new medevac laws

Sick people from Manus Island and Nauru will be sent to Christmas Island, not the mainland, under new medevac laws, the head of the home affairs department has revealed.

The Nauru government has also passed laws banning medical transfers based on telehealth assessments, threatening to derail the system and potentially breaking international law, according to human rights lawyers.

Related: Nine facts about the medical evacuation bill

The government plans to send sick refugees and people seeking …read more

Original content available at:

By Observer editorial

Whatever the risk this young Isis supporter may pose, she is Britain’s responsibility and we cannot afford to shirk it

Exploited victim or unrepentant villain? It’s impossible to determine the truth about Shamima Begum, the 19-year-old who left Bethnal Green in London when she was 15 to join Islamic State, from a single newspaper interview. And it shouldn’t be hard to acknowledge that more than one interpretation of her story might contain a ring of accuracy.

Begum is undoubtedly vulnerable. She was groomed online at the age of 15; married off, albeit willingly, to a jihadist fighter while still a child just …read more

Original content available at:

By Phillip Inman

Wanting to forge new trading relationships after Brexit and securing them are two very different things

A trade deal, any trade deal: that is all Liam Fox wants from his civil servants. It is not much for an international trade secretary to ask. Especially when the prospect of all-encompassing agreements on imports and exports was held up in the referendum and its aftermath as one of the chief benefits of quitting the European Union. Not least by Fox himself.

Wanting a trade deal and securing one are not the same thing, as Fox has found out in the last two …read more

Original content available at:

By Agence France-Presse

‘Homosexuality is not an illness,’ says gay health minister Jens Spahn

The German health minister, Jens Spahn, has said that he will seek to ban “conversion therapies” that claim to change sexual orientation. “Homosexuality is not an illness, which is why it does not need to be treated,” Spahn, who is gay himself, told the left-leaning Berlin daily Die Tageszeitung.

Related: ‘I still have flashbacks’: the ‘global epidemic’ of LGBT conversion therapy

Related: Man who worked as top ‘conversion therapist’ comes out as gay

Continue reading… …read more

Original content available at:

By Letters

Violence against protesters and human rights abuses by government condemned

We are deeply concerned about grave human rights violations in Zimbabwe and condemn the violent repression of peaceful protesters, including the leaders and members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, who called for a peaceful three-day strike in mid-January. Since then, security forces have used live ammunition against civilians, killing at least 12 people and wounding 78 others. Civil society activists and opposition politicians have been arbitrarily arrested and detained. Our colleagues in Zimbabwean human rights groups report that police and men in military uniform are conducting door-to-door …read more

Original content available at: