Why Do British Muslims Fear the New Citizenship Law?

The situation of Muslims in Britain has deteriorated with the passage of the controversial Nationality and Borders Act in April 2022.

With its unprecedented provisions, this law transforms British citizens of non-British origin, especially Muslims, into second-class citizens, as it gives the Home Office the power to withdraw citizenship from any of them, even without informing them.

 

Unfair Law

On September 11, 2022, the British Institute of Race Relations (IRR) acknowledged that the right to strip citizenship enshrined the idea of ​​citizens with "second-class citizenship" and primarily affected British Muslims.

The amendments to the Nationality and Borders Act gave the government broader powers to revoke the citizenship of British citizens of foreign origin because they hold the citizenship of another country.

But it will not apply to white Britons because they have no citizenship or foreign origins.

The British Institute stated, in its report entitled Citizenship: from right to privilege, that British Muslims are liable to withdraw their citizenship, which reinforces discrimination and creates a lower type of citizenship.

After the controversy raised by the case of the girl Shamima Begum, who was stripped of her citizenship by Britain because she joined ISIS, the institute said that under the pretext of protecting the security of the country, the Nationality and Borders Law was enacted, although there are thousands of British criminals whose nationalities will not be withdrawn.

The institute's vice president, Francis Webber, revealed that the message sent by the legislation is that despite their passports, these people cannot and never will be true citizens, as is the case with original British citizens.

He added in the report that while a British citizen (of origin) who has no other nationality can commit the most heinous crimes without jeopardizing his right to remain in Britain, none of the estimated 6 million British citizens of non-British ancestry feel confident to be treated in the same way.

According to the Office of National Statistics' data and the annual population survey issued on October 20, 2022, the number of Muslims in England is 3.3 million.

Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom, and Muslims in Britain are increasing significantly.

Most of the Muslims in the kingdom are immigrants or of origins dating back to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, then the Middle East, North Africa, and other countries such as Malaysia and Nigeria.

 

Muslim Women

Data issued by the British Home Office on October 13, 2021, revealed that nearly half of the victims of hate crimes in England and Wales in 2020 "were Muslims."

But a particular group of Muslims was subject to more severe persecution and abuse.

This was brought to light by the Muslim MP, Sultana (27 years), about hatred against Muslims from inside the halls of the British Parliament, with an influential intervention in which tears were mixed with strong and focused phrases, demonstrating the extent of racism that Muslim women are exposed to within society, and showing the repercussions of condoning this rampant and escalating phenomenon.

During her speech on September 14, 2021, Sultana said she grew up seeing the British Muslims, who have reached high positions or been appointed in Parliament, suffer several abuses.

With much pain, she admitted that she was wrong when she told young Muslim women that they did not have to worry about succeeding in society and that the obstacles they would encounter were the same as girls from other cultural backgrounds, adding that after her short stint in Parliament, she would like to admit that her journey was not easy.

Sultana's tears soon fell as she recounted the racist incidents she had been exposed to since her arrival in Parliament and her participation in the public debate as a simple example of the suffering of Muslim women in British society in general.

In her speech, the young Muslim MP presented a definition of Islamophobia and presented examples of the messages she received that were full of racism, defamation, and incitement, which caused a state of shock within the Parliamentary Hearing Committee, and among many British politicians.

Among the most prominent messages that Sultana presented were "You and Muslims represent a real danger to humanity," and "You are a cancer wherever you go and soon Europe will spit you out."

Here, the Muslim representative broke down and declared that being a Muslim woman, speaking in public space, and belonging to the left-wing, make her the subject of a flood of hatred.

On June 11, 2016, the British House of Commons report revealed that Muslim women are society's most economically disadvantaged groups.

The Council's Women and Equality Committee stated that the number of British Muslim women exposed to unemployment or looking for work is three times the number of their male peers in general, and the number of those who are not economically active is more than twice as many.

The committee said that the effects of Islamophobia on Muslim women should not be underestimated.

 

Dark Future

For his part, Sohaib Omran, a political refugee in Britain, said that the United Kingdom is one of the countries that are taking steps backward with regard to the rights of refugees, immigrants, and Muslims in general.

He added to Al-Estiklal that instead of observing human rights and stopping the discourse of Islamophobia, incitement, and discrimination, Britain is introducing legislation and laws that contribute to increasing the painful reality.

He continued: "Because of the approach of successive British governments, especially the Labour and Conservative parties, the Muslim community in Britain does not feel safe, nor do asylum seekers guarantee justice that will enable them to overcome their ordeal and start a new life that is less dangerous and cruel."

Omran cited the speech of the resigned Interior Minister Suela Braverman a few days ago, in which she said that her dream was to see a picture of a plane transporting asylum seekers to Rwanda on the pages of British newspapers and vowed to fight for this dream.

Sohaib stated that the Indian-origin minister was surprised by how she had immigrant origins declaring her fight for the deportation of refugees.

He stated: "It was more appropriate for her and her government to fight for humanity, the human right to life, achieve justice for the oppressed, and benefit from them as many governments around the world do, more efficient and less racist."

The political refugee talked about his experience that witnessed ups and downs to some extent and that the procedures were more severe for him than other non-Arab and Muslim asylum seekers, mentioning that Ukrainian asylum seekers get what they deserve in a few days, but "we have to wait for, maybe, years."

He stressed that the Muslim community in Britain must unite its efforts, with its votes and money, to extricate Muslims and immigrants from this situation, which may worsen to an unimaginable extent.