Is there a difference in the way Shamima Begum and Daniel Khalife are portrayed in the media?

[LucyAnnTrent]

Does anyone else think that there is a very different tone in the reporting on one disaffected young Muslim terror enthusiast (Shamima Begum) and another disaffected young Muslim terror enthusiast (Daniel Khalife)? Shamima went off to Syria to join Isis at the age of 15 and was/is widely considered to be persona non grata: despite her youth, request for forgiveness and the fact that she has paid a very high price for her decision to join ISIS (all three of her children have now died and her British citizenship has been taken from her), most people do not want her back in the UK.

Daniel Khalife, aged 21, is accused of accessing the personal details of soldiers and gathering information that could be useful for an enemy state (allegedly Iran) planning acts of terrorism. However, although the authorities have certainly taken him very seriously indeed, the media seems to view it almost as a daring prank, and much has been made about him heading for leafy Chiswick and his Waitrose shopping.

I find myself thinking that Daniel seems like a nice boy, and what a shame it is that he's in prison at such a young age. I don't feel this way about Shamima, even though she was several years younger than Daniel when she went to Syria.

Do you think the two of them are viewed differently in the media and by the public? If so, why is this? Are we more shocked by a female terrorist sympathiser, because we expect females to be less murderous or hold them to higher standards? Do we secretly admire Daniel for his audacious escape? Is it because Shamima was usually photographed in her hijab, whereas Daniel looks like the boy next door? What do you think?

The media have deliberately down played the situation with Khalife, and I suspect the police asked them to. If you read read between the lines, there was analysis that Khalife was trained by the British Armed Forces, one of the best in the world, and therefore he’ll be capable of hiding and surviving in remote areas. Every single news article the public were reminded that he wasn’t a danger to the public but under no circumstances should he be approached. The media made light of it because the alternative is that 1) a trained armed forces personnel that is a suspected terrorist is on the loose in the nation’s capital which would have caused mass hysteria and 2) the underfunding of prisons has lead to a trained armed forces personnel suspected of terrorist offences escaping from a minimum security prison.

But it can be both true that she has been treated unfairly by having her British citizenship revoked and committed terrible acts for which she should face justice for. It can also be true that she has aided and abetted the deaths of others while her children did not survive either. I imagine there is an awful lot of death in Syria.

None of those things are mutually exclusive. Even if her children were a fake sympathy ploy, my position does not change. She should have her citizenship reinstated and be made to face justice in the UK.

Yeah, the sum total of evidence for her claim that she had three babies who all died was that she said it happened. And in one of her many media appearances, she was holding a bundle of blankets that might have been a baby. Or not. Or someone else's baby. Or something.

Yet it's gained massive traction as a 'fact' and is repeated constantly on these threads and in similar conversations.

Whereas the intelligence reports that have proof of her actually directly participating in the deaths of young suicide bombers and their victims, and the role she played in torturing other young women, are mysteriously ignored.

I thought he was made out to be quite dangerous by the news I watched. If you call somebody a terrorist it is quite alarming. I think Shamina Begun wants to come back to this country and will do whatever it takes. But so far has failed. And no I don't think she should be allowed back.

Sure, we can imagine that she might have had 1, or 3, or 5, or 9 babies who all died. It's a bit shit that people are so willing to perpetuate this likely blatant lie for sympathy as truth though.

If people want to invest their time in arguing that she should be brought back to the UK, they should make that argument on its own merits, not by spreading lies, and not by covering up and denying the reality of what she is known to have done.

Personally it's not in the top million things I'd spend my time campaigning for. I do find it interesting how keen people are to make excuses for her though, and to fall for the PR hook, line and sinker.

Shamima talks without emotion about seeing a decapitated head in a bin, noting that it didn't faze her. She expressed that she didn't regret going. I think most people find it hard to feel sympathy for someone who didn't mind seeing severed heads. That's beyond grooming, that speaks to something about her and her mindset. There's also some evidence she was part of Al-Khansaa, the female morality police.

It's only when the potential to lose her citizenship came up that she changed her story, started dressing in western clothes and painting herself as a victim.

It's not racism or sexism. It's who she is as a person that is a problem.

Are you on the wind up OP? You found yourself rooting for him although he was on remand for terrorism offences? Rooting for him?

The major difference between the two is that one of them is in the UK and now back in prison. My immediate thoughts were he was clearly viewed as dangerous and probably had help to escape from Wandsworth prison, possibly from inside and out working together which is especially dangerous.

Shamima Begum was groomed in my view, but I also don't believe she's had an epiphany and changed her views, I think she just wants to come back to the UK rather than be stuck in a refugee camp in Syria.

I think you have to face the fact that it’s partly because the pictures of Daniel Khalife look like he could model for a living. The pictures the press used of Shamima Begum are not flattering, on the whole. There is definitely unconscious bias towards those perceived as ‘attractive’.

Flatiron True! He is quite easy on the eye and you're right, that does often result in good-looking people having an easier ride.

MotherOfGodWeeFella I didn't mean rooting for him as in rooting for any terror plan he might have been involved in to suceed. I just meant rooting for him on the run, because it was all quite exciting and because I don't actually think that he had any intention to hurt anyone.

Thank you to those who mentioned Shamima's role in the morality police. I didn't know about that, and I was also unaware that there was any doubt about her having children.

I have a clearer understanding now of why I felt more sympathetic to Daniel than Shamima.