Germany to start removing citizenship of dual national terrorist fighters

Germany’s cabinet has approved a change to the law allowing dual nationals to lose their citizenship if they fight for a foreign terrorist militia. The new law will not be applied retroactively.

The change to the citizenship law will apply only to adults who have a second nationality. Minors are unaffected. It would also not be applied retroactively, which would violate German case law.

Dozens of German “Islamic State” (IS) fighters currently held by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces and the Iraqi government would therefore not lose their citizenship. The United States and its Syrian Kurdish allies are pressing dozens of countries to take back thousands of foreign fighters captured as the IS caliphate crumbled.

The issue has triggered an intense debate in Europe over what to do with returning foreign fighters.

The German interior ministry estimates around 1,000 people left Germany to join jihadi terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq since 2013. About one-third of these people have already returned to Germany, some of whom have been prosecuted or placed in rehabilitation programs.

Via DW