Headlines:
British Muslims’ Citizenship Reduced to ‘Second-Class’ Status, says thinktank
Russia Suffers Major Defeat in Ukraine
Azerbaijan Launches Wide-Ranging Attacks against Armenia

British Muslims’ Citizenship Reduced to ‘Second-Class’ Status, says thinktank

British Muslims have had their citizenship reduced to “second-class” status as a result of recently extended powers to strip people of their nationality, a thinktank has claimed. The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) says the targets of such powers are almost exclusively Muslims, mostly of south Asian heritage, embedding discrimination and creating a lesser form of citizenship. The IRR’s report was published amid renewed controversy over the case of Shamima Begum, who was smuggled into the hands of ISIS aged 15, and in the wake of the Nationality and Borders Act – that allowed citizenship to be stripped without notifying the subject, coming on to the statute books. Frances Webber, IRR vice-chair and report author, wrote: “The message sent by the legislation on deprivation of citizenship since 2002 and its implementation largely against British Muslims of south Asian heritage is that, despite their passports, these people are not and can never be ‘true’ citizens, in the same way that ‘natives’ are. While a ‘native’ British citizen, who has access to no other citizenship, can commit the most heinous crimes without jeopardising his right to remain British, none of the estimated 6 million British citizens with access to another citizenship can feel confident in the perpetual nature of their citizenship.” The report describes the criteria for deprivation of citizenship as “nebulous and undefined” and warns of a risk of its use for political purposes, with Webber highlighting Begum’s case as an example.

Russia Suffers Major Defeat in Ukraine

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this week that Ukrainian forces had taken more than 1,000 square kilometers (about 621 square miles) of territory form Russia. Western media outlets have been giving round the clock coverage of Ukraine’s Kharkiv operation which took Russian forces by surprise. After announcing for weeks of an operation on the Southern city of Kherson, Ukraine forces completely wrong footed Russian forces, as the Russian generals moved troops south from Kharkiv, which meant they were outnumbered 8 to 1 as Ukrainian forces attacked. What remained of Russian forces and militia groups fled to Russia leaving behind significant war material for the Ukrainians. This is an embarrassing defeat for Russia who opened the war vert poorly and ever since have Russian forces have just held onto territory rather than expanded and now they are losing territory.

Azerbaijan Launches Wide-Ranging Attacks against Armenia

Azerbaijan carried out a wide-scale attack against targets in Armenia, an unprecedented escalation of the long-running conflict on to Armenian territory. Armenia’s defense ministry reported attacks, starting around midnight September 13, targeting cities all along the southern part of Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said it was merely carrying out “local countermeasures” in response to “the large-scale provocation.” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in a morning address to parliament, reported that at least 49 Armenian soldiers had been killed in the attacks. “We have to note that, unfortunately, that number is not final,” he said. Since the war in Ukraine, there have been signs that Azerbaijan may be probing Russia’s ability and willingness to keep the peace in the region. This escalation comes as Russian troops have been rapidly retreating against a Ukrainian advance. Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement reporting that it had received Armenia’s request for CSTO assistance but gave no indication of what its response might be. Russia is the guarantor of the ceasefire agreement that ended the 2020 war between the two sides, and has nearly 2,000 peacekeepers stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani territory that Armenian forces won in the first war between the two sides in the 1990s. The timing of this escalation comes at a difficult time for Russia as it struggles in Ukraine.