Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

British IS girl has had her baby

395 replies

BrizzleMint · 17/02/2019 17:55

She's had her baby - a son.

Cabinet minister Jeremy Wright told BBC's Andrew Marr programme that the baby's nationality was "not straightforward".

The culture secretary, who was previously attorney general, said the first priority was establishing the health of her and her baby.

OP posts:
findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 08:46

He has spoken about her mental health - nothing to do with her reason for going there! He's not saying she went to fight a noble cause!

All lawyers put the case for their client. Lawyers defend criminals at trial without knowing for a fact if they're innocent or guilty (how can they if they haven't been tried yet).

How can anyone argue for due process when people don't seem to understand the law?

Hollowvictory · 18/02/2019 08:47

He's not met her and she hasn't been medically diagnosed. So he's talking manipulative tosh.

JellycatElfie · 18/02/2019 08:47

She said she was ok with people being beheaded ffs Hmm

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 08:48

Plenty of Nazi shoulders would have been shell shocked. It's a fact. Nothing to do with right or wrong.

JellycatElfie · 18/02/2019 08:48

Yesterday she gave an interview to Sky News in which she said she didn't regret the decision to leave, while arguing the British public 'should have sympathy for her'.

doesnt regret leaving

KingHenrysCodpiece · 18/02/2019 08:49

she may have made a direct request to
come back to the UK, but that doesn’t mean the government has to risk soldiers or whoever’s lives to go through a war zone to get her.

That's true. But the point I'm making is that now everyone has heard about her specific case should harm now come to her or her child it would be national news. Around the world. We keep saying that what separates us from all these various regimes that abuse human rights is that we believe in democracy and have a judicial system that places value on the life of even the most wretched and wicked individual. Except now in front of the world we are saying 'so shes british, so what? Let her stay there, so her child is also a british citizen and might get sick and die...so what'

Perhaps if no one really was aware of this story we might get away with it but now its out there, if we do nothing we look like we are undermining our own values. If we appear to do that, then we have lost something pretty wonderful.

JellycatElfie · 18/02/2019 08:49

Yes they probably were she’ll shocked doesn’t mean that they aren’t murderous monsters Hmm

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 08:51

Lawyers ask for medical assessments for their clients before trials if they think they need them - standard procedure. He's not met her because he hasn't been able to. It's what all lawyers do as their first duty is to the court not to their client and they have to ensure due process takes place.

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 08:52

Yes they were murderous monsters - that's why they were given trials.

IrmaFayLear · 18/02/2019 08:52

If my family thought I'd been brainwashed/groomed etc my parents and siblings would risk their own lives to go and try to get me out. Her family is expecting everyone else to help her regardless of the risk to others.

This from a poster upthread.

I haven't seen this point made much, but I immediately thought the same. However, I did see a comment from an "expert" that the family was not, er, anti the cause and although may not have sent their dd to Syria, were not as surprised as, say, I would have been if my dc had run away there.

JellycatElfie · 18/02/2019 08:53

It’s all very well sitting on your podium being virtuous and talking about democracy and a fair judicial system but would your atitide be quite so ‘fair minded’ if it had been your child who died at the ariana grande concert??? Stop worrying about her baby and worry about your own. I want a safe country for my children to grow up in and someone who is ‘ok’ with beheadings and actively goes to join isis is a danger to that.

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 08:55

I made that point Irma

I think her family seems upset but not frantic in the way mine would be. My parents would already be trying to get to me in any way they could.

PortiaCastis · 18/02/2019 08:57

Oh so much attention and publicity the woman is wallowing in it no doubt, after all it won't be long before a saintly journo gets into Syria and rescues her, oooh the scoop ooh the headlines !!

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 08:57

You keep making this point about babies as though her baby has fewer rights than other British babies - not going to convince me I'm afraid.

I would think differently if it was my baby that had died but it's not my decision to make and that's why we don't let victims and emotional mobs make decisions about the rule of law.

JellycatElfie · 18/02/2019 08:59

And you’re not going to convince me, I’m afraid, that her baby matters more than the safety of mine.

IrmaFayLear · 18/02/2019 08:59

Apparently there are at least 27 women in a similar situation in Syria wanting to return to Canada.

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 09:01

I don't recall saying it did - they are equal.

JellycatElfie · 18/02/2019 09:03

Ah, you are so fair minded you’re surely on your way to sainthood Grin fortunately I chose not to join isis but to raise my children in a country that’s mostly safe - you go to Syria knowing what you’re getting into, you have to accept that any children you have are going to be I. Danger. That’s the choice she made I’m afraid. I don’t see why my children’s safety has to be put at risk by her.

JellycatElfie · 18/02/2019 09:06

I also wonder why other women have been murdered for trying to leave isis but she is free to talk to the press, give interviews etc? I wonder if isis want her back over here for reasons other than ‘safety’ hmm? Wink

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 09:06

Ok Jellycat but it's ok to expose Syrian children to risk from a British subject?

Their parents didn't decide to put them in that position either?

They've already had 800 British subjects reeking havoc in their country.

MadgeMidgerson · 18/02/2019 09:07

Maybe we should use brexit as the impetus to completely withdraw from international law and just go full on rogue

There is certainly a lot of appetite for it here.

However, I can’t help but wonder if the attitude of ‘who cares if a person is British, the state has no obligations towards them whatsoever as a condition of citizenship’ could ever possibly result in anything less than fantastic?

It might be prudent to remember that the same misfortunes we cheer on in others do indeed sting when experienced by us

findingmyfeet12 · 18/02/2019 09:08

She might be a mole (I have no idea). However she isn't currently living with ISIS so they can't stop her speaking out.

I thought she was with the Kurds.

AppleKatie · 18/02/2019 09:09

It’s a choice she made at 15. That well known age of sensible choices.

I think the uncomfortable truth is that our children are already at risk from her (and people like her). Back in the UK the newborn can be removed and cared for in such a way that will make them a much less dangerous adult in the future.

Thymeout · 18/02/2019 09:10

I'm a bit concerned about 'She was a child' to excuse her actions and what comes across as normalisation of her behaviour into just a teenage blip. Talking about PND or PTSD and trying to empathise as mothers is misleading.

The two friends who went with her were 16. I don't know her birthdate, but it's likely that they were all Yr 11s. She might have been only weeks short of being 16. People are talking about giving the vote to 16 yr olds. It's not that long ago that 3/4 of the population left school and were out in the world of work at 15. She wasn't a little girl.

I've spent a LOT of time in the company of Yr 11s over my career and I've never met one who'd think it was OK to commit the sort of horrors that define Islamic State. Sure, they might have their obsessions, from super-fandom to wanting to be a Bride of Christ to Animal Rights activism, but we are in 'We have to talk about Kevin' territory here.

It's all v well to talk about 'brain-washing'. But to go from talking about it to actually making that journey of thousands of miles to a war zone is a league apart. It's v likely they had on-line help with the logistics, but you'd have to have a v unusual psychiatric profile to be susceptible to brain-washing on that sort of scale. Trying to empathise and talking about PND or PTSD and how she must feel about the deaths of her two children is misguided. There won't be a quick fix to make her safe.

We have to take her back under international law. It's what to do with her, the other 'wives' and children and the 700 plus fighters who've been captured that's the problem.

The baby should be taken into care and put up for adoption, but I doubt v much that there's much hope for rehabilitation in Begum's case.

MadgeMidgerson · 18/02/2019 09:10

actually I am coming round to the thinking that a newborn baby who is also a British citizen is doubtless a massive security threat who prenatally has already been involved in who knows what terrorist actions

For our own safety we must allow this child to die early in a refugee camp