to want to know why British Jihadi fighters will have their passports revoked?

[partyskirt]

Upon hearing that there are 500+ English muslims fighting in Syria and Iraq as part of the Isis army I immediately looked online for what would happen to them if they tried to return to the UK. I've listened to the news for days and read the papers, government websites etc. and it seems that they will simply be allowed back in. I find this extremely frightening. Why isn't there a clear line on what will happen to them if they try to return? Why isn't the government being clear that they will have passports cancelled and be exiled?

They left to engage in terrorist activity.
They didn't leave to "fight for a cause"!

"One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter" and all that.

They are terrorists. When/If they come back and they slip through the net they will make it their "cause" to recruit more young men and women to engage their terrorist activities.

That is a problem the government needs to tackle.

Lets say hypothetically, you don't let them back in. Do you think that no one in this country will become a terrorist again? People are also recruited by viewing videos made in another countries. What should be do about that. Ban the internet? Your fear is making you unreasonable.

By suggesting we don't let them back in you're just saying we should treat the symptom not the cause.

Little - Yes I mean they will go on to radicalise other inmates.

Definitely Ongar. Sounds dodgy

Ongar is rather leafy and lovely in fact

So the bemusement from some is that they can't be RE-patriated BACK to THERE (haven't quite decided if I agree yet but I see the argument). It isn't ye olde NF 'send them back home' rhetoric, I think....

Yes it is. There is no such state to send them to and this is their home

Knitted radicalisation is danger in prison but these men and women still need to be punished. We cant keep them out of prison for that reason. No more can we keep people out in case they take drugs.

The issue needs to be addressed in all areas. Its not just Islamic radicalisation. People get recruited by gangs and into far right organisations in prison too.

I think the Prison service got caught on the hop. They didn't see it coming. Now they have to do something about it.

Shoving people inside and leaving them too it will lead to all kinds of problems, not just to do with religion.

We need rehabilitation as well as punishment but as soon as you start talking about that you get the accusations of being soft on criminals and crap about OAPs and Soldiers getting less money than your average crim.

I really worry for the publics safety. We essentially have an army of radicalised trained soldiers returning from Iraq and syria. The important thing in all of this for me is that this threat is unique, the first of it's kind. No nation has had to deal with this kind of threat before and it's not unfair to question whether the necessary policy/ legal powers are in place to deal with it.

I don't think trying to catch the odd returnee and attempting to arrest them and then possibly jail them is going to be sufficient to the threat posed.

I thought that's what you meant Knitted which is why I said I thought they would be separated from the mainstream prison population so that couldn't happen

Usernamename is it very inaccurate of me to have you pegged as terrorist sympathiser?

What do you think the alternative is to deeming terrorism-tourism to be beyond the pale? Just adopt a laissez-faire attitude? Accept the inevitability of various shades of radicalism?

Yes it is. There is no such state to send them to and this is their home

I missed any post where the complete phrase 'send them back home' was used LittleBear. I understood that any mention of 'send back' was raising hackles. I apologise.

Yup that's it Arsenic those of us who don't think this country should shoot people on sight have Semtex stored in our knicker drawer to hand out to terrorists when they run out.

My fear is not making me unreasonable, Username. I am aware of how young people are being radicalised and recruited to these terrorist groups. I know full well that even if we don't let them in, we will always have terrorists in this country.

I'm not sure who you've got me confused with LittleBear. I've just spent half the thread arguing AGAINST meeting violence with violence

Then why ask username if she's a terrorist sympathiser?

Wrong person, LittleBear

I know full well that even if we don't let them in, we will always have terrorists in this country.

Keeping radicalized youth IN the country is one of the better reasons for revoking passports.

Aus have been doing it (although one of their 'most wanted' escaped on his brother's passport and was last heard of psoting pictures of his 7 year old posing with severed heads, from Syria, on twitter. So it's not foolproof).

LittleBear and Username -- do you have any ideas though about what should be done about men who may well have beheaded someone and claimed to want to kill all non-Muslims returning to Britain in the near future?

It's all very well being entirely left wing and relativistic but some plans need to be laid surely? Or just 'take it as it comes'. I think Tony Blair really brainwashed the left to think inertia is best.

I was being slightly sarcastic about UserName's colander-like stance LittleBear. I thought my actual position was fairly clear by that stage.

Knitted radicalisation is danger in prison but these men and women still need to be punished. We cant keep them out of prison for that reason. No more can we keep people out in case they take drugs

Yes I very much agree they need to be punished I was questioning the wisdom of shoving them into our own crowded prison system to them further radicalize other men.

Maybe we need a Guaantanimo Bay, maybe we can send them to the one in America.

I am from Ongar Hotbed of terrorism, I assure you.

Regardless of what they have done, as humans, they still have rights and one of them, in Britain, is that they can't be made stateless unless fighting for the other side in a declared war. We aren't at war at IS. They can't be made stateless. I'd far rather they get locked up in jail and hopefully reeducated or at least be kept away from the rest of society than go back to IS and whatever and cause more deaths and damage. We can revoke their passport but not their citizenship.

That is a good argument Panda -- prison will stop them hurting more people in the middle east/here.

As the OP I really am learning from this thread -- thank you ladies! It's hard to think about on your own but also not a great topic to bring up at work / baby groups

Does anyone know if Teresa May got this legislation someone linked to upthread, on stripping people of their citizenship, through? Strikes me as very bad law indeed - no due process, no clear definition, could be used on anyone the home secretary takes against, even if she's mistaken, rather than being restricted to actual terrorists.

The history of this is interesting. I was horrified when I learned that the brave young men fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War had to be smuggled back into this country. Because the pre-WW2 government was so keen to appease fascists they pegged decent men fighting extremism as dangerous, rather than, for instance, Franco or Hitler.

BUT if it was done to these brave men, I don't see why it can't be done to actual terrorists. Can't we refuse them entry if they turn up at a UK border?

And yes, if they want to go and fight for a Caliphate, they've chosen to abandon and betray the UK, so they shouldn't be allowed to crawl back here when they are injured or defeated or have had enough.

We do need to be careful that we have identified actual terrorists, though, not some poor sod like that doctor who went to Syria to treat horribly-injured civilian victims and was kidnapped and imprisoned (and killed, but there may be other cases of people who manage to escape).

I think Tony Blair really brainwashed the left to think inertia is best.

He certainly brain washed them and the whole country in many ways.

I am worried about Jihads springing up like the Murderers of Poor Lee rigby. Lots of random attacks on innocent people all over the country, how could we stop it?

We have no control on our borders, we cannot effectively even stop them slipping back in.

Guantanamo bay is shit and what's the point sending them into a prison filled with terrorists like themselves? We can't keep them alone forever and shouldn't do anyway, so I don't see why putting them with already radicalised people will help more than putting them with people who will have some radicalised members and some not.

It's all very well being entirely left wing and relativistic but some plans need to be laid surely? Or just 'take it as it comes'.

Good question.

We seem able to accept that radicalisation occurs in prisons.

We need to give serious thought to the effect that several months of decapitating people (or witnessing decapitations and crucifixons and other assorted acts of brutality) has on a human psyche. And to what then happens when those people rejoin British society and the networks that radicalized them in the first place.

Consider what we now know about PTSD in demobbed army soldiers (leaving a regimented fighting force with strict chains of command and rules of engagement) and multiply it by a thousand. We have a major problem coming our way.

partyskirt, we need to identify them first.

Without knowing their actual status we can't decide what should be done. Lots of what could be dones have been posted... and a few madcap ideas challenged.

There is nothing to be done now but there are policies in place for when we can do something. We also know that the intelligence agencies from multiple countries are looking closely...

I suppose you could keep your fingers crossed that America gets to them first. We know how well they manage their death row!

Apologies if that came across as bolshy, given the posts before it... not intended, honest