London: The UK risks “unintended consequences” by failing to repatriate former Daesh members from Syrian camps in line with the efforts of other Western countries, the government’s terrorism adviser has warned.
The Independent reported that Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that government ministers had denied his request to review the practice of removing British citizenship from former Daesh fighters and their families.
The UK’s reliance on its “primary counterterrorism power to deal” with Daesh and prevent former members from returning to the UK runs counter to the efforts of other Western countries and risks “unintended consequences,” Hall said.
“I do wonder if the policy of deprivation will end up having unintended consequences. Lots of other countries are repatriating people and it begs the question of whether the UK can’t also manage the risk,” he added.
“Prosecution can be really difficult in relation to people who have been in Syria and Iraq but we’ve got a very well-coordinated counterterrorism machine — we’ve got a suite of civil powers.”
Hall said that the government began to rely on citizenship stripping in 2017 amid fears that Daesh’s downfall would see large numbers of former fighters returning to UK shores.
He added: “Now the numbers are less, it’s several years on and you’re talking about a different risk profile.”
His warning comes amid growing concerns over the deteriorating state of prison camps in northern Syria, with local forces struggling to maintain safety and order.
A series of riots and breakouts in camps as well as the prevalence of human trafficking have led to humanitarian groups urging the government to reconsider its strategy toward former fighters and their families.
Defence Select Committee Chair Tobias Ellwood warned that “Daesh 2.0” could come about if Western countries fail to use repatriation to ease the burden of local prison administrators.
Maya Foa, the director of legal charity Reprieve, said: “Britain is the only G20 country that strips citizenship in bulk and the last of our allies refusing to repatriate its nationals from northeast Syria.
“Each time one of our allies brings its nationals home, as France, Spain, Australia and Canada have done in the past months, it shows up the UK government’s policy for what it really is: a political posture, more concerned with headlines than British lives.”
A 2016 policy review commissioned by the government warned against citizenship stripping as an overall strategy, saying it may be an “ineffective and counterproductive weapon against terrorism.”
It defined the policy as “catch and release,” resulting in “setting up today’s convicts as tomorrow’s foreign fighters.”
The review added that citizenship stripping promoted “the dangerous delusion that terrorism is (or can be made into) a foreign threat and problem.”
