ISIS killers should not be allowed to return home

Based on further intelligence analysis, there is a strong presumption now that another French national is among the cold-blooded killers who also appeared in the sickening video depicting the slayings of several men described as Syrian soldiers and allegedly showing the aftermath of the beheading of US aid worker Peter Kassig.

Although we have to insist that neither ISIS nor its henchmen showcased in the videos are representative of Islam – there are millions of moderate and peaceable Muslims around the world for whom beheadings in the name of Islam is a terrible defilement of the religion they love – we believe that more should be done to make sure that these killers are not allowed to travel abroad. More importantly, we argue that any radicalised Western Muslims flocking to the Middle East to join ISIS' brutal campaign should be stripped of his or her citizenship without notice, even though this might be against international law. Why?

To begin with, democracies have the right to defend themselves against terror and its propaganda by imposing tougher sanctions on extremists holding foreign passports who travel abroad to fight alongside a terrorist organisation. Any of the murders shown in the ISIS videos should lose their foreign passports and be barred from travelling to Western countries as a precautionary measure. Even though this might be against international law, these jihadists should even be stripped of their citizenship, if they were showcased in the ISIS propaganda videos murdering prisoners in cold blood.

The 1954 UN Convention on Stateless Persons and the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, both of which have been ratified by most Western countries, say you cannot render someone stateless. Yet, we contend that these young men have in effect sworn allegiance to a hostile state: the Islamic State. By all definitions, ISIS can be considered a state controlling a territory considered as an organised political community under one authority and army. The Islamic State is also claiming to be a nation-state with its new plans to start minting gold, silver and copper coins for its own currency – the Islamic dinar.

As a consequence, we argue that the jihadists fighting for ISIS have effectively sworn allegiance to a “proto-state,” and it is necessary for them to understand all the implications of this. If ISIS wishes to issue these young men Islamic State passports in the future, it shouldn't be our problem if they have trouble getting into any foreign country with them. It also shouldn't be our problem if ISIS ceases to exist one day, rendering them stateless.

What is our problem is that there is no right to a violent holiday in a foreign country and, equally important, there is no going back to civilised society when you have had enough of your holy war. Why can these young men burn their foreign passports, murder their compatriots in cold blood, and deny their legal allegiance to the values of their home country on TV, yet we cannot tell them: “OK, stay there and never come back.” Those who travel abroad to commit violent murders in the name of whatever cause should know before they go that there is no going back to our civilised world, to our communities and to their families; they are not “representative of Islam” either and they are not welcome any more for their crimes against humanity. We should also admit that it may take a long while to destroy that enemy, but surely our first step is to call it what it is: a terrorist group made of stateless criminals.