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.

If she was radicalised in the UK where were her parents why didn't they know what she was doing.

I really don't understand the attitude towards her either. At 15 I would make the most ridiculous decisions but luckily for me I grew up in a small village with a middle class family. But I was so green and keen to people please that I suspect in the right circumstances I could have found myself in her circumstances.

That doesn't mean however I don't think she should not be prosecuted for her crimes. Bringing her home isn't a vote winner though is it.

Why would she want to come back? She wouldn't last long.

Motherofpoodles youthful indiscretions and exuberance are not the same as supporting terrorism and condoning beheadings are they.

It was not Shamima Begum, but one of the other trio, Amira Abase, who's father went to islamist rallies led by Anjem Choudary, apparently relating to treatment of Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia, but his views remain unclear.

It's been widely publicised that Shamima Begum's father spent most of her childhood in Bangladesh, where he still lives now. Whereas her mother and siblings are in London and don't have any links to radical Islam.

Most terrorists have been radicalised

It’s a shame we can’t give her citizenship to a deserving Syrian refugee instead

Citizenship isn’t given out on the basis of merit.

Summer 2015. A five-year-old girl is chained up and left outside in the desert sun in Fallujah, Iraq – a punishment for wetting the bed while feeling unwell. The little girl slowly died of thirst in temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius. Condemned to the same inhumane punishment was the girl's mother, made to endure the additional and unimaginable horror of helplessly watching the life drain from her daughter's tiny body

This is an article from the Spectator documenting some of ISIS’s crimes.
How do we know for certain that Begum no longer supports such appalling actions?

If she was radicalised in the UK where were her parents why didn't they know what she was doing

I don’t know in her case, but the radicalisation process is insidious and can happen very quickly.

Also, when the police had concerns about her and several other girls they didn’t tell the parents. They interviewed the girls and sent them home with a letter outlining their concerns. It was at that point SB and 2 of the other girls ran.

The remaining children were taken into local authority care.

I’m wondering whether the people refusing to understand how radicalisation works feel about the girls who were taken into care? SB could so easily have been one of them.

@Noidea2114

If she was radicalised in the UK where were her parents why didn't they know what she was doing.

I assume you’ve never parented a teenager. I’m pretty sure I don’t know the half of what mine got up to, my parents definitely didn’t.

@Andante57

Summer 2015. A five-year-old girl is chained up and left outside in the desert sun in Fallujah, Iraq – a punishment for wetting the bed while feeling unwell. The little girl slowly died of thirst in temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius. Condemned to the same inhumane punishment was the girl's mother, made to endure the additional and unimaginable horror of helplessly watching the life drain from her daughter's tiny body

This is an article from the Spectator documenting some of ISIS’s crimes.
How do we know for certain that Begum no longer supports such appalling actions?

Horrific contents but it’s well worth linking that article for anyone who can stomach it (and if you can’t, then quite frankly stop agitating for Begum’s comfort until you can);

www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-shouldn-t-forget-the-horrific-crimes-of-isis

Horrific contents but it’s well worth linking that article for anyone who can stomach it (and if you can’t, then quite frankly stop agitating for Begum’s comfort until you can)

Ignoring the way ISIS recruit and refusing countenance the idea of dealing appropriately with people they radicalised as children doesn’t help the victims of ISIS.

The more work we can do to prevent radicalisation and to de radicalise those who they’ve recruited the better.

None of that means “letting off” SB. It means she should be brought back to the UK, she should go through the criminal justice system and she should be required to engage in deradicalisation programs.

Doing that makes the people in the Spectator article safer. Leaving someone stateless and under the potential influence of ISIS doesn’t.

SB is not welcomed and no sympathy left for her.

I heard a lawyer some time ago suggesting that she has special needs. I wonder if she genuinely doesn’t understand the ramifications of what she has done. Which is a bit chilling.

What happened to the other two friends she left with?

@SmileEachDay You have spent the whole thread just banging on and on insisting only your view is correct. You seem to be at one extreme end of this and I think sense lies somewhere in the middle. Nobody can weigh up the two sides until they are familiar with the full details.

Unfortunately for SB, there’s no middle ground. It’s a binary decision whether to let her into the country to appeal. A whole series of binary decisions.

Besides which, what OP asked was why the government is taking such a stance, and if people engage with the full horror of Daesh and security concerns, they will see that it isn’t just Tory reactionaries being knee jerk.

She will get to return here in the end, anyway. So none of these current legal decisions are forever.

@queenofthenorthwest The other two are thought to have been killed in air strikes.

@Gemma2019

I do believe she was brainwashed but strongly feel that she is a danger to the UK and shouldn't be allowed to return. She has openly bragged about sewing suicide bombers into their vests and sending them off on their missions so is partly responsible for numerous deaths.

I do understand that we all make mistakes as teenagers but she has no regret and shows no remorse for her actions. The lack of contrition is chilling, and she is only trying to step up the charm and dressing in western clothes now to get what she wants.

This^ a million times over. Do not let her back in UK. Besides, if you did, she’d end up in prison for the terror acts she did as an adult alone. What is a better life for her? U.K. prison for most of her life or free to live in 75% of the rest of the world? There are many beautiful countries that would accept her and she can live there happily.

@GoLightlyontheEarth

I heard a lawyer some time ago suggesting that she has special needs. I wonder if she genuinely doesn’t understand the ramifications of what she has done. Which is a bit chilling.

There is no paper trail of special needs so as a defence its a non starter children with special needs are usually picked up before they turn 15 the school would know if there was an issue I can only speak for my special needs children they wouod not be able to plan and execute an escape that involves stealing passports and crossing boarders

@queenofthenorthwest

What happened to the other two friends she left with?

One of them is dead, maybe both?

Not only have we let her down because she was a child who had been radicalised when she left the country, but we have also let her down as a Muslim woman who is a British national. She should be repatriated and dealt with accordingly.

You have spent the whole thread just banging on and on insisting only your view is correct. You seem to be at one extreme end of this and I think sense lies somewhere in the middle. Nobody can weigh up the two sides until they are familiar with the full details

Rude! 🤣🤣

I’m responding to different people. You don’t have to read my posts 🤷🏻‍♀️

Why does Shamima Begum get all this publicity and Jihadi Jack Letts who has also had his UK citizenship revoked, doesn’t?