AIBU to ask if we can have a sensible discussion here about Shamima Begum?

[StephenBelafonte]

I just don't understand the hostility towards her by the british government. Surely as a 15 year old she was radicalised and brainwashed.

I genuinely don't understand why the government is so harsh towards her. Unless they know something we don't. I feel so sorry for her.

@HadaVerde

I find it bizarre how some people are seemingly pinning every Isis crime/killing on this one teenage girl.

Also regarding remorse shown/not shown, how much remorse could she show while surrounded by other isis loyal people?

She is victim of the ‘adultification’ of black and brown children.

What rubbish.

Is it not BECAUSE she has been groomed, BECAUSE she has been radicalised, that she may still present a threat?

@GoLightlyontheEarth

Who says she was raped? She married the man willingly.

At 15 years old? A stranger in his 20s?

Yes rape.

@ginghamstarfish You make your bed, you lie in it so you think being a child (or coerced etc) when you commit a crime shouldn't impact on the sentence?
you think 10 year olds should be sentenced for life or coerced women ditto?

Hang on, so people are saying a 15 year old can consent to both marriage and sex?

So they think its perfectly okay for an adult to have sex with a 15 year old.

@GoLightlyontheEarth

Who says she was raped? She married the man willingly.

I find it worrying that an adult thinks a 15 year old child can consent to both sex and marriage.

@Wearywithteens

“SimonJT I found it ironic that on international womens day people failed to support a woman who was groomed as a child, married off, raped and suffered the loss of three children. It reminded me that it should be renamed international white womens day.”

What a load of bollocks. That young woman consented to the marriage and just the other day was delighted to get a birthday card off him. She is still a brainwashed, radicalised Isis bride whatever ‘Chat Magazine’ headlines you out on it.

So you think 15 year old children can consent to both sex and marriage with an adult?

In that case you would be happy for your child/ren to have sex with and marry a stranger at 15?

I thought she still has the opportunity to appeal further, but that the High Court ruled this wouldn’t happen until she was released from the camp, precisely because she can’t present her case from there without risk.

She is the test case, there are many more like her in those camps and my concerns about her apply to all those people.

Personally, I don’t know what my opinion is about her returning. It seems wrong to burden another country or society with the risk these people present. However, I can’t see what kind of life she would lead here. It doesn’t seem feasible to have a trial when the definite evidence expected by the justice system here is most likely inaccessible.

I worry she would become a public figurehead, her parents are evidently not going to welcome her home, and she would most likely be somewhat or fully ostracised by any former friends. She would find support in ISIS sympathisers and Anjem Choudary style go public for money and attention. At the same time most likely needing police protection and monitoring.

Deradicalisation isn’t a science, and clearly produces variable results. Most, if not all, of the terrorist attacks in this country have been carried about by people who have either supposedly been deradicalised or deemed not enough of a threat by the security agencies.

I understand you don’t just snap out of believing in a cult on hitting adulthood. Yet, whenshe made comments about the Manchester bombings or her general support for ISIS, she was a mother who had two dead children, someone you would have thought sympathetic to such a tragedy which targeted mainly young girls. It’s hard to reconcile those comments and still feel compassion for her.

In case anyone gets the wrong idea on where I stand, while I'm happy to argue the technical point that she was a Bangladeshi citizen and therefore the UK government didn't render her stateless, I'm not happy about British citizenship being removed from people who were born and grew up here. It seems like a bit of a cheap stunt to make them someone else's problem. More importantly, it just seems wrong to me to remove citizenship from someone who grew up here, severing all links with everyone and everything they grew up with.

The citizenship thing is interesting. In the case of Letts Britain got in there first (not sure if Canada would have stripped his citizenship) but in this case Bangladesh have got in there first and left Britain holding the baby.

You win some you lose some.

For absolute sure the whole thing is a mess. I wonder if we need an international court to be able to deal with cases like this?

I cant believe all this hand wring for a terrorist. People are making the mistake of looking at her situation through Western eyes, the eyes she despised and couldn't wait to betray. She left willingly and knowingly, the marriage is legal in that country. She has literally made her bed. The bleeding hearts should save their sympathy for children and adults killed by people that follow a religion of hate

I'm really fucking tired of the double standards on this thread.

15 is a child. It is below the age of consent.

A few people have mentioned the horrific abuse that went on in Rochdale. One 15yo victim of the Rochdale gang acted as a recruiter, drawing in other girls who were also abused. Most of the victims were white. I think we would all agree that these were children, unable to properly consent to what happened to them, and that they were victims of grooming and sexual exploitation.

Shamina Begum was the same age as those children, but according to some posters on here, she shouldn't be regarded as a child, she fully consented to what happened to her (despite having been under the legal age of consent) and she can't possibly have been groomed.

The situations are not directly comparable for sure, but the differences are quite telling.

My child is mixed race. She was born in the UK and has never lived anywhere other than the UK. She has never had anything other than a British passport, but it just so happens that her father was born overseas. Please tell me why it is fair that my dd and her white British best friend could commit exactly the same crime and yet one could be stripped of her citizenship while the other would not. Is my daughter less entitled to her British citizenship? Is it ok that she has somehow been demoted to a second class citizen?

Of course, I am pretty confident that neither my dd or her friend are in danger of committing any crimes that might put them in this situation, but there is a principle here that is important. Why should one group of people face more severe punishment than another? Why should some British citizens be less entitled than others? And please don't tell me that this isn't about race, because yes, it's true that white people can have their citizenship revoked if they have dual nationality, but the reality is that this approach will impact disproportionately on black and brown people. And that is not fair.

She was 15 years old, grieving for her Mother, had a difficult home life with her Dad and his new wife and she was very much groomed. She has lost three babies since moving there, I can’t even imagine the pain. She’s only 21, she has plenty of time to be rehabilitated here and make something of herself.

@Norwaydidnthappen

She was 15 years old, grieving for her Mother, had a difficult home life with her Dad and his new wife and she was very much groomed. She has lost three babies since moving there, I can’t even imagine the pain. She’s only 21, she has plenty of time to be rehabilitated here and make something of herself.

Can someone like that be rehabilitated and who would pay?

Regardless of what you think of her actions the UK has basically left a terrorist sympathiser (at best) for Syria to deal with because we don't want her here. If a Syrian had come here and committed an act of terrorism no doubt the same "leave her there" crowd would be shouting for her to be deported.

She is British, she is our problem. The fact that she has been left for other countries to deal with says a lot about the home office, and none of it good.

You are wrong she is no longer British and showing no remorse towards ISIS victims and sympathy towards Western culture. She left willingly Britain and is still in touch with her radicalised husband.

AlexaShutUp

I'm really fucking tired of the double standards on this thread

I agree. The last thread about SB had such, such appalling attitudes on it. Very thinly veiled racism. Some overt racism. This one is no different.

Also a total lack if understanding of the radicalisation of children. The process of being groomed and a victim of criminal or sexual exploitation mirrors how children are radicalised.

The UK has acted appallingly.

I was not born British and my child could have two citizenships so this is not about racism it is about terrorists. Begum had been seen holding an automatic weapon and shouting at Syrian women in the city of Raqqa for wearing brightly coloured shoes. Why would I like a person like her to return to UK? There were separate allegations that Begum stitched suicide bombers into explosive vests, so they could not be removed without detonating. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/shamima-begum-isis-syria-morality-police-suicide-belts-a8869016.html

@SmileEachDay, thank you. It honestly makes me want to weep.

I actually don't have much sympathy for SB personally. She made some really fucking stupid decisions and she has said some awful things. Her morals are clearly lacking.

I just want her to judged in the same way as any other vulnerable 15yo would have been, and I want her to be treated like any other British born citizen would be. That's all.

Grooming is grooming is grooming she was a child. Her three children are dead and buried in sand. People have said she appears unemotional. This detachment is a known trauma symptom. She is British and needs to be treated as such.

If a couple of homophobic kids in England cheered as a gay man was thrown off a building, what you say? Oh, they’ve been groomed? I bet you wouldn’t.

Last I heard we were all innocent until proven guilty or is that not a thing now?

It hasn’t been for ages.
Has Kevin Spacey actually been convicted? Accusations were enough to make sure he won’t work again.
In Korea there have been accusations against singers and actors for bullying. Some have admitted it and apologised. Others deny it but they have been dropped from the films and series they had lined up despite no charges being brought.
Nowadays an accusation of assault, racism, homophobia etc seems to be enough to get the accused cancelled.

@HermioneWeasley

There is a world of difference between grooming (which involves coercion and often alcohol and drugs) and someone being interested enough in Daesh burning people alive in cages to seek them out and be persuaded to go to considerable lengths to join their death cult.

I see zero evidence of remorse, she’s just terribly sorry her murderous caliphate didn’t come about and she’d prefer to be with her parents than a Syrian refugee camp.

The British citizen thing is a complete herring - she has no way of getting back currently so it makes no difference.

Save your compassion for the Yazidi women brutalised and tortured by her regime

Absolutely this.

It’s not a brown issue when Australia deports white people, who’ve been in Australia since they were babies back to the UK. If you commit a very serious crime and have dual nationality this is the risk you take.

Her Dad is actually in Bangladesh. If anyone is responsible for this seemingly perpetual child - it’s him.

It’s not racist to dislike terrorists and quite frankly I’m fed up with all the accusations of racism with this known terrorist sympathiser. Ffs she even married one of them and sewed others into suicide vests. I’m not buying the 3 babies dying of malnutrition either. She has always looked healthy with good muscular definition. Hungry she was not.