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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Shamima Begum cannot return.....

999 replies

Lillylolo · 26/02/2021 20:40

What are your opinions?

I feel that her dual heritage has been used against her, to push her towards Bangladesh.

However, I do feel she is a threat to the general public and it would be incredibly difficult to control/monitor her actions. Which may put the rest of the population at risk.

This is just an open debate. Let’s try not to rip each other apart, more of a healthy debate

OP posts:
Helocariad · 27/02/2021 14:06

@babybythesea

Take her out of it for a moment. The people who are scathing of feeling sympathy for her, let’s remove her from it.

Someone travels from their country of birth to the U.K. and commit a crime. If their birth country follows Britain’s lead, they now decide that they do not want their criminal back and they remove their citizenship. Which means this criminal is now stuck in the U.K., we cannot deport them because we have nowhere to deport them to because they are now stateless.
Would you be happy with this?

It’s not about feeling sympathy for her as an individual, it is about looking at the wider implications for this decision. If you would not want a criminal from Syria to be denied Syrian nationality and left here, then you cannot deny SB citizenship to the U.K., the place of her birth.

If we continue to deny her citizenship then we have to accept the consequences of other countries taking the same approach to us in the future.

How she is dealt with, where she faces justice etc etc is another issue, but we cannot just deny her citizenship.

^this^^
Sweet666 · 27/02/2021 14:12

She's the victim of being groomed and raped and abused by a pedophile... some of you are seriously messed up to think she shouldn't be allowed to come home. If she was white I bet you would have a different idea. She was raped and abused! She was a child when she went there and she got 'married' and had children (that is rape) with a man

Andante57 · 27/02/2021 14:15

@randomer

I don't think its down to school staff...haven't they enough to be doing?
Exactly. Let’s blame everyone except Shamima.
Sweet666 · 27/02/2021 14:15

Anyone who isn't an idiot will know she is very very traumatised, of course she will be numb to the violence and what she has seen. That's normal!

woodhill · 27/02/2021 14:15

@randomer

I don't think its down to school staff...haven't they enough to be doing?
Definitely. Her family need to take some responsibility
SuperSimple · 27/02/2021 14:16

@babybythesea

No they haven’t. But our decision to strip her of citizenship is a dangerous precedent to set. Could be used in all sorts of circumstances which is why we need to be careful before heading down that path.
Apparently we have done this with many hundreds of jihadis.
Ilovegreentomatoes · 27/02/2021 14:16

Couldn't care less about her.
Much more important concerns going on in this country atm.
We have enough to deal with right now.

SuperSimple · 27/02/2021 14:17

@Sweet666

Anyone who isn't an idiot will know she is very very traumatised, of course she will be numb to the violence and what she has seen. That's normal!
She was an enforcer. She thought they were justified to behead people. She's not traumatised.
Lampzade · 27/02/2021 14:18

@babybythesea

Take her out of it for a moment. The people who are scathing of feeling sympathy for her, let’s remove her from it.

Someone travels from their country of birth to the U.K. and commit a crime. If their birth country follows Britain’s lead, they now decide that they do not want their criminal back and they remove their citizenship. Which means this criminal is now stuck in the U.K., we cannot deport them because we have nowhere to deport them to because they are now stateless.
Would you be happy with this?

It’s not about feeling sympathy for her as an individual, it is about looking at the wider implications for this decision. If you would not want a criminal from Syria to be denied Syrian nationality and left here, then you cannot deny SB citizenship to the U.K., the place of her birth.

If we continue to deny her citizenship then we have to accept the consequences of other countries taking the same approach to us in the future.

How she is dealt with, where she faces justice etc etc is another issue, but we cannot just deny her citizenship.

This This is my issue with this decision. People need to look at the danger of setting such a precedent.
MzHz · 27/02/2021 14:25

@randomer

She needs to stay where she is so she has no power over others within our borders

Like keep all the baddies away from us?

Yeah, same concept as a prison. But better.
Lampzade · 27/02/2021 14:28

@TheKeatingFive

She has dual citizen ship though

She’s never stepped foot in Bangladesh or expressed a desire to get a passport.

Why is it okay to foist the problem on to them? They have no responsibility for her or her actions whatsoever.

She does not have Bangladeshi citizenship. The Bangladeshi Government have said that they would not give her citizenship as she is British. So she is stateless
Thewithesarehere · 27/02/2021 14:30

No matter what she did and what was amiss, she is a born and bred British and hence our responsibility. I don’t think Syrians have the means or capacity to jail the thousands of terrorists other countries exported there, with hundreds from just the U.K.

We need to take responsibility of what went wrong here and, just like a lot of other countries have done, jail the morons when they return. Hopefully for life.

Sweet666 · 27/02/2021 14:32

She's the victim of being groomed and raped and abused by a pedophile, funny how mumsnet would usually care about that. I really believe if she was white then you lot would have a different attitude...

Lampzade · 27/02/2021 14:34

@Sweet666

She's the victim of being groomed and raped and abused by a pedophile, funny how mumsnet would usually care about that. I really believe if she was white then you lot would have a different attitude...
Unfortunately, I think that you are right
SmileEachDay · 27/02/2021 14:34

She's not traumatised

Between the ages of 15 and 19 she had three children who died. She has lived in awful camps. She has witnessed terrible violence. She’s probably been subject to all manner of violence and abuse. Of course she is traumatised.

Thewithesarehere · 27/02/2021 14:39

@Sweet666

She's the victim of being groomed and raped and abused by a pedophile, funny how mumsnet would usually care about that. I really believe if she was white then you lot would have a different attitude...
I might have disagreed with you last night. Now I don’t. There have been some really xenophobic posts on this thread, including one that said acquired citizenships are a previledge not a right (without realising that this does not apply to this girl). And many many more who have no empathy fir any other country than their own and will happily dump our terrorists on other countries.
SirChing · 27/02/2021 14:41

[quote Clubcleo]@SirChing you seem to be struggling with the point of my post. It's not about spending time thinking about the case- it's about bothering to extend any kind of pity to her when there are far more deserving causes to get all worked up about/ feel a sense of injustice about.[/quote]
You seem to be confused between people advocating that Begum is a British mess for the UK Gov to deal with, and sympathy for the murderous woman. Accepting responsibility doesn't equate to sympathy or pity. She can rot in jail and then hell forever as far as I am concerned. I just expect the costs for that jail to fall to the UK.

Daffodilsarehere · 27/02/2021 14:53

She was British but she turned against that and fought alongside our enemy.

I have no sympathy for her. None at all.

Mittens030869 · 27/02/2021 14:53

So next time a 15 year old is accused of being a member of a far right organisation or some sort of racist attack are all the people defending Begum going to be defending them too as young, impressionable and groomed?

^This also. I also notice that there’s much more sympathy for a radicalised teenage girl than for teenaged boys who have been similarly radicalised. What’s the difference really?

SmileEachDay · 27/02/2021 14:56

going to be defending them too as young, impressionable and groomed?

Absolutely- far right groups are a massive issue in terms of stopping radicalisation.

Dannydevitoiloveyourart · 27/02/2021 14:57

@Mittens030869

*So next time a 15 year old is accused of being a member of a far right organisation or some sort of racist attack are all the people defending Begum going to be defending them too as young, impressionable and groomed?*

^This also. I also notice that there’s much more sympathy for a radicalised teenage girl than for teenaged boys who have been similarly radicalised. What’s the difference really?

The difference - the state haven’t washed their hands of them. Boy or girl 15 is a child and at that age it’s for our justice system to deal with her and attempt to rehabilitate her.
VinylDetective · 27/02/2021 15:01

@Sweet666

She's the victim of being groomed and raped and abused by a pedophile, funny how mumsnet would usually care about that. I really believe if she was white then you lot would have a different attitude...
She’s a very willing participant in terrorist activity. She wasn’t groomed, raped or abused by a paedophile. She is a radicalised Isis bride who said:

she was inspired to join ISIL by videos of fighters beheading hostages and also of "the good life" under the group. She continues to espouse the ISIL ideology and to try to justify its atrocities. When asked about the Manchester Arena bombing, she claimed it was wrong to kill innocent people, but that ISIL considered it justified as retaliation for the coalition bombing of ISIL-held areas. When questioned about rape, enslavement and murder of Yazidi women, she claimed, "Shia do the same in Iraq

I really find apologists for her deeply distasteful, trying to play the race card even more so.

Dannydevitoiloveyourart · 27/02/2021 15:03

I really find apologists for her deeply distasteful, trying to play the race card even more so.

What’s the race card and how can I play it?

It sure would be nice to have a magical card that gives me more privileges than afforded to white people such as the right to be stripped of my only citizenship from my country of birth and left stateless. Oh wait...Hmm

SmileEachDay · 27/02/2021 15:04

She’s a very willing participant in terrorist activity. She wasn’t groomed, raped or abused by a paedophile. She is a radicalised Isis bride who said:

The process of radicalisation is the same as grooming, She was a child of 15 when she became an “Isis bride” - an age at which sex and marriage are both illegal in the UK.

Mittens030869 · 27/02/2021 15:06

It’s been pointed out on this thread that Begum isn’t the only one treated in this way. She’s getting the sympathy because she was a young girl.

It’s very difficult. Groomed or not, at this point in time she’s been radicalised and is therefore a terrorist threat. You only need to look at 7/7 and the Manchester Arena bombing to know how much devastation Islamist terrorist activity can lead to.

I don’t know what the answer is. If she can be kept in secure accommodation then yes it would be right to bring her back to the UK.

But has she committed an actual crime that she can be prosecuted with on UK soil? Her crimes were committed in Syria, and would, I suspect, be very hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

There has been no suggestion that she could be tried for terrorist offences in this country, as far as I’m aware?