Thread by @fahadansari

Citizenship Deprivation: A thread on how the origins of the current practice have their roots in Tony Blair's desperation to deport one British man in the wake of the 9-11 attacks 20 years ago, the Muslim preacher Abu Hamza.

cage.ngo/citizenship-de…

Subjected to one of the most grotesque racist media campaigns of dehumanisation in the post 9-11 world, in which his prominent disabilities became the focus of acceptable mockery and ridicule, press and politicians alike regularly called for Abu Hamza's deportation from the UK.

The only difficulty however was that Abu Hamza was a British citizen and had been so since 1986, so could not simply be banished from the country for expressing distasteful views. That would be medieval.

The solution: strip him of his citizenship. But the only way to do so back then was to prove that Abu Hamza had been disloyal to the Queen, colluded with the enemy in war, or received a prison sentence of at least one year.

On all three counts, he was innocent. Time for Plan B.

In 2002, then Home Sec David Blunkett introduced radical amendments to the British Nationality Act 1981 that would enable the govt to remove citizenship from any person who had done anything it deemed to be ‘seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom’.

That this change to the law was specifically created to target Abu Hamza is evident from the fact that he became the first target of the measure on 4 April 2003, a mere three days after the amendment came into force.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/291929…

REPEAT: This incredible expansion of the govt's power was only introduced to enable the government to deprive (& deport) one man!

Until then, deprivation appeared to be moribund in practice with not a single individual having been stripped of their citizenship for 30 years.

The 'Hamza amendment' as it became informally known was passed into law and utilised against Abu Hamza with barely a murmur of protest from the Muslim community, anti-racism groups, or civil society organisations.

We are today living with the legacy of that acquiescence.

It was the Hamza amendment that enabled the government, for the very first time, to strip away the citizenship of those who were born British, and not just those who naturalised after migrating to the UK, provided that this did not leave them stateless.

One of the few voices of dissent at the time was Philip Hensher who was acutely aware of the racist underpinnings of the new law and the types of British citizens it would impact.

independent.co.uk/voices/comment…

It was also the Hamza amendment that now diverted appeals against citizenship deprivation decisions to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a specialist tribunal where the government can rely on secret evidence that is withheld from the appellant & his lawyers.

SIAC, initially created to hear appeals against deportation of foreign nationals involving sensitive intelligence material, was from this point onwards additionally entrusted with hearing the appeals of foreign-looking British nationals whose citizenship was being removed.

Critically, at the time that Abu Hamza filed his appeal, the law prohibited the govt from making a deprivation order against him until a final decision was made in his appeal. He would thus remain a British citizen throughout the judicial process, i.e. he could not be deported.

This was instrumental in SIAC allowing his appeal on the grounds that any future deprivation order would leave him stateless after it emerged that the Egyptian authorities had removed his Egyptian citizenship shortly after learning of the UK government’s intention to do the same.

It's no surprise then that on 4 April 2005, the law in this respect was repealed, enabling the Home Secretary to issue deprivation orders with the notice of intention to deprive in the absence of any prior judicial oversight.

As @NishaKapoor07 pointed out, the ‘deport now, appeal later’ policy of the hostile environment that came into play in 2014 had already been ably rehearsed in this other ‘counter-terrorism’ context.’

versobooks.com/blogs/3774-on-…

In a further attempt to demonstrate the foreignness of such citizens, in 2006, the govt abandoned the ‘vital interests’ test, preferring ‘conducive to the public good’, the same test for deporting foreign nationals. The old test was "too high and the hurdles too great".

Government policy states that 'conducive to the public good' test covers cases of national security, war crimes, espionage, serious organised crimes & the non-exhaustive & very broad list of 'unacceptable behaviours' (also first drafted as criteria to deport foreign nationals).

As barrister Amanda Weston QC pointed out, the revised wording is critical because of a House of Lords’ ruling in 2001 that courts must show deference to the Home Secretary’s view of what is conducive to the public good in national security cases.

irr.org.uk/article/depriv…

The full impact of this warning would be realised 20 yrs later when the Supreme Court upheld the govt’s decision to prevent #ShamimaBegum returning to the UK, reprimanding the lower court for not affording the Home Sec’s assessment ‘the respect which it should have received’.

While the mass mobilisation against Clause 9 of the #NationalityAndBordersBill is welcome, it's clear that the very powers campaigners & community groups are outraged about already exist & have been used by numerous Home Secretaries on over 150 occasions.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

It was the Hamza amendment from 2003 that enabled Sajid Javid to deprive Begum of her citizenship despite her being born British in the UK, solely on the basis of her having inherited Bangladeshi citizenship from her parents.

It was the Hamza amendment that meant that her appeal against that decision would involve secret evidence in SIAC. It was the repeal of s40(A)(6) in 2005 (also because of Abu Hamza) that resulted in her being stripped of her citizenship before a court even reviewed the decision.

It is curious how the use of this power in recent years has been lost on many of those advocating against Clause 9 who seem to view it as a catalyst for deprivation to begin, rather than it being the pinnacle of a raft of legislation that has already compromised our citizenship.

Prominent aid worker @toxaidworker was one of 104 British citizens deprived of their citizenship by Amber Rudd in 2017.

theguardian.com/global-develop…

Another veteran aid worker in Syria, Mohammed Shakiel Shabir, was also deprived of his citizenship in the same year.

middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive…

A third aid worker 'N3', who was also deprived of his citizenship by Rudd, returned to the UK this year after the Home Office withdrew the decision following over 3 years of litigation in which the court found the decision to have been unlawful.

cage.ngo/british-aid-wo…

These were the same powers that enabled Theresa May to deprive Mahdi Hashi of his citizenship after which he was kidnapped, tortured and rendered to the US without any due process.

theguardian.com/books/2018/nov…

May would also use the power to deprive Mohamed Sakr & Bilal al-Berjawi of their citizenship, after which they were extrajudicially killed by US strikes without the inconvenience associated with the US assassinating the citizens of one of its allies.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/…

Clause 9 is a red herring. While in theory, notice of a decision is a critical element of due process, when set against a background of draconian powers that enable the govt to treat British citizens as foreigners due to their ancestral heritage, it's a minor inconvenience.

We should be advocating for a complete roll-back of the deprivation regime that was introduced to target one man & which have since been used to create a second class of citizenship for people of colour, one that remains open for review and on par with expellable non-nationals.

Any such campaign will inevitably involve putting principles above personalities. Few would have any sympathy for these men but silence in the face of their deprivation only serves to establish the foundation for a wider application of the power in future. theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/a…

As a side point, it will be interesting to see if socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who also carries French and American citizenship, will have her citizenship revoked if found guilty of her involvement in similar crimes.

time.com/6125081/ghisla…

It is not outside the realms of possibility for a time to come when third-generation British citizens of foreign ancestry will be deprived of their citizenship following convictions of knife crimes or gang violence on the back of racism-infected media hysteria.

Unless anti-racism activists and human rights campaigners are prepared to take a principled approach to these issues, we are doomed to repeat the errors of the past. For make no mistake, we were all deprived of our citizenship the day they tried to deprive Abu Hamza of his.