Shamima Begum....where do you stand?

[LeahSMS]

What are your thoughts?

AIBU to think she was only a child but unfortunately she’s now considered as a threat so therefore she will never return it’s not only about her safety but the people around her?

Tell me your thoughts

@MillieChant He was stripped of his British citizenship last year.

It can't be one rule for him and one rule for Begum. Funnily, I don't see the same uproar for him.

She definitely isn't a security risk, definitely won't attempt to recruit more fighters, definitely won't try to carry out more attacks.

Which is precisely why we need to bring her back. Quite apart from the possibility of rehabilitation, we'd do well to remember the old saying 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.'

Your sarcasm is bizarre and misplaced and suggests you haven't read my or others' points properly, or are deliberately failing to understand them.

I think it’s unfortunate for her that she’s Asian and also neither articulate nor very likeable on camera.

I think things would’ve gone differently if a blue eyed blonde haired girl had been groomed by adults, been victim of statutory rape and had three of her kids die in a camp then tearfully and articulately begged to come home.

@ActuallyItsEugene - Shamina Begum doesn't have dual citizenship. The UK government is claiming she is entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship through her mother, but she's never held it and Bangladesh claim she isn't. So, it's totally different.

Dual citizenship being removed (although I still think the UK have behaved in a shitty lazy way in the case of Jihadi Jack and have said so in various places) vs rendering someone stateless which is illegal under international law.

I'd also add that he was 18 when he left for Syria, as opposed to 15. So, an adult instead of a child.

Very very different cases.

The last time that was done, the London Bridge attacks happened and a poor young man who was trying to help rehabilitate these people was killed by one of them. Yes that was heartbreaking.

@IntermittentParps You're of the belief that she can be rehabilitated.
The same was believed of Usman Khan, who killed the person attempting to help him (along with several others) last year.

'Keeping your enemies closer' in this respect means having her on home soil, trying to keep her under surveillance and hoping she doesn't carry out an attack.
Our police/prisons have enough on their plates without reintroducing another terrorist.

When do you say enough is enough?

She belongs in jail. A British jail. The idea that she’s Bangladesh’s problem just because she could apply for Bangladeshi citizenship (which she does not have) is horrendous. Why the hell should Bangladesh have to deal with her? She’s our problem.

I think she deserves a second chance. She should answer for her crimes here, and do some prison time if found guilty, but her life doesn't deserve to be written off because of a mistake she made at the age of 15 (admittedly a whopper of a mistake).

People can change and I think given her age she should be given a chance to redeem herself.

@GreytExpectations There was no reason for you to bring up the Rotherham victims, apart from attempting to compare the two.
Grooming and sexually abusing someone isn't in the same league as what Begum did.*

I didn't bring them up. Another poster mentioned did.

Our police/prisons have enough on their plates without reintroducing another terrorist.

This is just the very starting point of a massive conversation and massive issue. I'm not against imprisonment per se but I do think prisons need, for all our sakes, to be geared towards the possibility of rehabilitation. For that to happen they need proper funding and resourcing. Usman Khan, given better rehabilitation from a properly resourced prison, may well not have done what he did.

@MillieChant I understand that, but (seeing as they were both born here) shouldn't the same be said for Jack?
Surely it could be argued that as she apparently deserves to be 'rehabilitated' in the UK that Jack deserves that too?
Whether he holds dual citizenship or not.

They are both terrorists, they both fled to assist IS in the 'fight'.
Both guilty of the same crimes.

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep

I think she deserves a second chance. She should answer for her crimes here, and do some prison time if found guilty, but her life doesn't deserve to be written off because of a mistake she made at the age of 15 (admittedly a whopper of a mistake).

People can change and I think given her age she should be given a chance to redeem herself.

Well can you redeem your self after supervising beheadings of innocent people?

That takes a special kind of person to have the stomach for that.

It’s not like she robbed a bank or stole a car she participated in murders

How can you come back from that? Your mind would be permanently changed.

Also @ActuallyItsEugene I didn't bring up the Rotherham girls, someone else did. I also didn't compare a terrorist with rape victims, I compared the grooming and brainwashing tactics. I've already explained this though.

I think she is now so twisted that she is a major risk. That is the fault of those who groomed her - she became a child soldier and is now an adult with the same mindset.

I've no idea if there is any going back from this but unfortunately she is our problem. Bring her back, yes, but straight to a long sentence.

She's been accused of awful crimes including treason. She was above the age of criminal responsibility at the time those crimes were committed. She's an adult now.

Bring her home, lock her up (certainly not a case for bail IMHO and anyway not sure she'd be safe otherwise) and let her stand trial in a court, in this country in front of a jury and the public. The facts need to come out, including how it was she came to end up in Syria in the first place.

She was a child at the time and that needs to be taken into account.

She has to be a citizen of somewhere and regrettably, that seems to fall to us. Bangladesh don't want her and I don't blame them.

Something has to be done - its not practical for her to stay where she is forever and a day. Unfortunately she's the tip of a rather unpleasant iceburg. A lot of countries are going to have to take back the citizens who decided to join ISIS and put them to trial - either that or they face justice in Syria.

Personally I don't want to share a country with someone who can talk dispassionately about severed heads in bins but she's still a human being.

I reserve my sympathy for those who were slaughtered by ISIS and for their families and also for the children who were too young to have a choice about joining ISIS with their parents and suffered as a result. At 15 you have a choice - especially when that choice involves stealing your sister's passport, buying tickets and travelling across Europe to carry it out

I love how so many posters think once someone joins ISIS (after being groomed and brainwashed) that they have free will to pick and choose what they do. Like they can just go and say to the leaders " Nah, don't fancy supervising beheadings today" and be happily off on their way. Do you all honestly think that once you join you have loads of freewill and choice in your "tasks"? In case you didn't realise, they are a terrorist organisation that know how to control people.

I don't think she or her children should be let in anyone who does anything to endanger peoples life should not be allowed back in x
This country is way to soft that's why everyone wants to come here because they don't get punished enough. X

It’s not about the mistake she made at 15 or that she was groomed or brainwashed.

She has admitted she feels no remorse for what she did and she seems to genuinely believe in what she was fighting for, if IS hadn’t lost the area I have no doubt she would still be living and fighting for them.
She’s only making pleas to come back now because she has lost everything and is living in a refugee camp.

If she has to return to the uk to fight her case she should have to make her own way here, The gov should absolutely not be funding a jet to go to Syria to taxi a terrorist to the uk.

If she comes back to the uk I hope she will be arrested and charged for her terrorist activities.

@ElementalIllusion
Well said. X

@IntermittentParps So who are we to blame for Khan murdering several people last year?
The prison who 'failed' him? Or Khan himself for planning and carrying out the attacks?
The panel at the prison were clearly of the belief that he was safe to be reintroduced into society.
Did he pull the wool over their eyes? Did they cut corners and just let him go?

Whatever happened there cannot happen again. How do we mitigate the chances of that? Apart from locking them up and throwing away the key.

It's a very tough, extremely risky decision to make. It potentially puts a lot of lives at risk.
I don't believe that we could overhaul and reform the prisons in time to rehabilitate Begum.

Did they cut corners and just let him go? Probably.

Whatever happened there cannot happen again. How do we mitigate the chances of that? Apart from locking them up and throwing away the key.
As I've already said. I know it's a big problem and a long-term thing to solve; that's why I said it was the starting point of a massive conversation.

@GreytExpectations Are you being deliberately obtuse?

We know she wouldn't have had the option to say no. More importantly, she'd have known that she would have to get involved.
Yet she still made the choice to join the group.

She's a British citizen, she was a child, she was groomed.

Should she be punished for crimes that she has committed? Sure!

Should she be stripped of her citizenship and refused entry to the country? No.

She needs to be brought back here to safety, then dealt with appropriately by the legal system here.

There is far too much of a culture of blaming and punishing victims in this country.

To add, this kind of thing is exactly what PREVENT was designed to, well, prevent!

Answering the OP only. She's British, she was a child who'd been radicalised on line when she went. There's no choice but to let her back. I'd love to say leave her there but it's not right, no matter how angry and resentful we feel. Young people do stupid shit and we don't turn our backs on them.