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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

to think they should charge the Syria girls

999 replies

adsy · 21/02/2015 08:14

If they are indeed with terrorists in Syria then when a small chink of sense comes back to them and they want to come home, I hope they will be charged.

OP posts:
26Point2Miles · 22/02/2015 08:01

Well I don't see how 3 schoolgirls could help anyone who is suffering out there. It's a weird thing for the parents to say, I did question it way back up thread myself.

SpringTimeIsComing · 22/02/2015 08:12

Aqsa Mahmoud left her home in Glasgow in November and apparently travelled to Syria. It's believed that she is recruiting jihadi brides. I was quite shocked by a statement her family released, especially the last paragraph. Aqsa was probably brainwashed just like the other three girls yet her family don't appear to be considering this judging from their statement.

'The family of Aqsa Mahmood are full of horror and anger that their daughter may have had a role to play in the recruitment of these young girls to ISIS.
They are not sure how much more misery that Aqsa can inflict on her own family but the fact that she is now accused of destroying other families is beyond the pale.
However the Security Services have serious questions to answer- Aqsa's social media has been monitored since she disappeared over a year ago, yet despite alleged contact between the girls and Aqsa, they failed to stop them from leaving the UK to Turkey a staging post for Syria.
Sadly despite all the Government's rhetoric on ISIS, if they can't even take basic steps to stop children leaving to join ISIS, what is the point of any new laws?
As for Aqsa- you are a disgrace to your family and the people of Scotland, your actions are a perverted and evil distortion of Islam. You are killing your family every day with your actions, they are begging you stop if you ever loved them'

Stealthpolarbear · 22/02/2015 08:21

surely theyre hedging their bets to allow the option for their daughters to return

ILovePud · 22/02/2015 08:22

I feel so sorry for the family of Aqsa Mahmoud, her parents just look heartbroken and defeated. I think at first their appeals were much more consolatory and begging her to come home but she has been actively involved in the recruitment of other girls and has posted things on-line revelling in the murder of Lee Rigby and the Boston bombing and calling for further attacks, I can understand why her parents are horrified with this. She was also much older than the three girls who have recently gone, she was a university student at the time she left to join IS.

MiscellaneousAssortment · 22/02/2015 08:23

Sounds like a carefully crafted message to me, for the girls themselves as the intended audience vs us/ general population.

I think they're trying to give them 'an out' (whether it's true or not), you don't get anyone to come back unless there is a way of saving face and doing that.

Being reported to be monsters and traitors won't help the girls if they can still make decisions themselves... they need to have a way of framing their actions as good and an acceptable 'volte face'.

ILovePud · 22/02/2015 08:28

I agree MiscellaneousAssortment from their parents perspective I can see why they are giving that message, they must be in absolute torment.

sunabroad · 22/02/2015 08:29

We all seem to have forgotten that there are millions of people suffering due to the dictatorship and atrocities committed by the Asad regime, due to which ISIS was born. This doesn't legitimise ISIS, far from it, but people are really suffering under Asad's regime and ISIS - there is no food, shelter and basic medical needs for millions of people.

If these girls were recruited via twitter than the intelligence services has a lot to answer for. They could have easily stopped it.

Weebirdie · 22/02/2015 08:33

*Weebirdie why is it disgraceful? Do you not agree that people are suffering in Syria?"

Oh for goodness sake. What do you think?

Do you really need it explained to you that these girls going to Syria are doing nothing to help Syrians and everything to do with them going to seek out some Jihadi John as a husband.

Do you now understand I was appalled by the spin being put on it by their parents?

26Point2Miles · 22/02/2015 08:33

Why do you think we have all 'forgotten'? What makes you think that?

sunabroad · 22/02/2015 08:34

The 'help' in the parents statement is completely understandable.

If the girls went to join ISIS they were probably recruited under the premise that they would go out there to 'help' people against the Asad dictatorship regime, as 'freedom fighters'. That is probably what the parents are referring to.

Weebirdie · 22/02/2015 08:34

Well I don't see how 3 schoolgirls could help anyone who is suffering out there. It's a weird thing for the parents to say, I did question it way back up thread myself.

Yes, exactly.

26Point2Miles · 22/02/2015 08:36

Probably? Then really you haven't got a clue either sun

Just grasping at straws as well

SlaggyIsland · 22/02/2015 08:37

No weebirdie I totally get that three teenage girls are unlikely to be able to do much to alleviate suffering in Syria but I still don't see anything wrong with the parents statements.

Weebirdie · 22/02/2015 08:38

Sunabroad, I think thats what the parents are hoping we are all stupid enough to think.

Hathall · 22/02/2015 08:38

I think a lot of the luring of people over to Syria is under the pretence of doing some humanitarian work.

sunabroad · 22/02/2015 08:41

Weebirdie, I disagree with you, I think you are making a horrible assumption. The parents clearly didn't say what you are making out they said.

Imagine their fear and horror at what their daughter is up to. Each morning they wake up they have no idea whether their child is alive or not. The last thing they need is people accusing them of being involved in some way!

If they were complicit in any way, they would have been charged. It is horrible to assume things about them just because their daughter went off the rails.

Weebirdie · 22/02/2015 08:41

Thats fine Slaggy, you're as much entitled to your opinion as much - but the spin you put on my earlier reply was quite staggering. Did you really think someone would think Syrians aren't suffering? I find that quite incomprehensible to be honest.

sunabroad · 22/02/2015 08:43

But why is it so hard to believe that someone would go to Syria for humanitarian work?

Just because we don't hear much about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Just listen to the daily Radio 4 report from Syria, it is heart breaking.

SlaggyIsland · 22/02/2015 08:43

Yes that confused me as well, your post wasn't clear.

26Point2Miles · 22/02/2015 08:44

Well they didn't go prepared to 'help' anyone

Where were the aid supplies? Blankets/food/medicine... Stuff you'd take if you thought you'd be helping people? No, nice little romanticised notion but no, these girls weren't travelling to help anyone!

sunabroad · 22/02/2015 08:46

26Point, you wouldn't need to take the supplies with you! You could in theory go to the border and join an aid convoy, and volunteer there.

For all we know, they could be having a nice holiday on the shores of turkey Shock

26Point2Miles · 22/02/2015 08:49

Aid convoys at the border? Turkey facilitate that ?

They aren't on flipping holiday!

halfwildlingwoman · 22/02/2015 08:52

limitedperiodonly, thank god you turned up. I am reading this thread with mounting horror.
Of course they are just children. I wanted to bomb animal testing labs at that age. Fortunately there was no internet so I couldn't be groomed and sent money. I grew out of it by the time I was 17.
The issue may seem as simple as 'ISIS behead people so they are bad', but it really isn't simple at all. Assad is an evil bastard who used chemical weapons on his own people - can you not see why an intelligent passionate young girl might want to fight the regime that did that? Not to mention the war crimes committed against the Palestinians, an issue that much of the Muslim population are very angry about - it's not entirely separate.

I'm not sure that it's sympathy I feel, but I am very very sad that young British people feel that this is a path they want to take. I find it deeply distressing that so many of you are so cruel about these girls.

Weebirdie · 22/02/2015 08:55

Sun, involved? Who said they were involved/complicit?

My point is that the parents are probably thinking oh lets try and get people to believe they thought they were going out there to help, rather than the actual reality of situation.

Do I feel sorry for the parents? No, I dont.

I feel more sorry for the women who probably wouldn't even have access to their passport to go on a holiday, let alone have many of the other freedoms these young women have had.

I also feel sorry for the young Iraqi man who works for me here at home after having to first flee Iraq, then Syria. He sits here during his shifts in a country that will never give him citizenship, going through his college books that he's read from back to front many many times over during these last 2 years because he wants to keep up with his studies.

They get my pity. Not the girls and their parents.

Weebirdie · 22/02/2015 08:56

Oh and Sun, I dont have to listen to the news to be aware of whats happening. I have the reality of it in my house 8 hours a day.

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