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.

Alsohuman because she still has clout within the terrorism network and is still a supporter, and she has an agenda.
I think that is a good point that someone else had to be moved after speaking to Sky tv.

Exactly that. No way am I buying that she’s terrified. It makes me sad because she’s obviously a very strong, resilient and determined woman, she could have achieved so much if her energies been channeled differently.

Facts - she is appealing the decision to strip her of her British citizenship. She says she should be allowed to return to the UK whilst fighting the appeal. The UK have said she can do that from where she is and doesn't need to be in the UK. Her team know it's a lot harder to deport someone than to refuse entry.

I don't think there's any unfairness here other than the lives she and her gang murdered, tortured and abused. I have no sympathy for her. She was not an innocent bystander, she took part in horrendous attrocities and defended them vigorously until she realised she would have to pay for her actions. She has been told that if she goes to Bangladesh she will be treated as a terrorist. Not sure what that means exactly but it's not good and that's the reason why her Bangladesh citizenship is not acceptable to her. Good old UK with their justice and fairness regardless of what you've done. She left to live under an unjust, unfair murderous system and now wants HER OWN crimes to be judged fairly and with sympathy by the very country that she wanted, quite passionately to destroy.

NO.

Travelling across continents to join a medieval death cult in their spree of rape murder and torture is not a “teenage mistake”

Not for a westerner no
But for a teenager in a hijab in tower hamlets , maybe
At that silly age she might have seen Isis in a far more immature way
We understand how vile they are as we are adults
A closeted disenfranchised teen may not have

Do we penalise her for not being very bright ??

In which case why is she still there, bold as brass in Western clothes with blow dried hair? It makes no sense.

They aren't allowed to leave the camps are they. Certainly in the Sky report women were described as, "trying to escape" and "being released." So I don't think it is as easy as walking out.

@Alsohuman

Exactly that. No way am I buying that she’s terrified. It makes me sad because she’s obviously a very strong, resilient and determined woman, she could have achieved so much if her energies been channeled differently.

How are you judging that? On the Sky report a 17 year old was shot twice as her mother promised her she would be for condemning ISIS. They reported a woman being beaten with iron bars by other women for trying to escape.

We have no clue what her position is but what we do know is that those camps are breeding grounds for the future ISIS fighters. Their view of the rest of the world won't be positive and if we don't do something positive the future for the west is bleak as they will make the previous wave of ISIS look mild in comparison.

The thing that worried me most about that report was the little children with broken arms and facial injuries. What is going on in those places and all of us in the west are complicit, we wash our hands of it and leave Syria and the Kurds to deal with it. Syria can't feed all it's own children let alone the foreign women and children in camps.

How brutalised those children are.

Ancientgran terrible injuries for little children to suffer. How are these children being injured, by accident or at the hands of others. SB
has had 3 babies perish in these camps despite not appearing malnourished herself. It must be desperate in the camps but I don’t believe for one minute SB is in danger.

@ancientgran

In which case why is she still there, bold as brass in Western clothes with blow dried hair? It makes no sense.

They aren't allowed to leave the camps are they. Certainly in the Sky report women were described as, "trying to escape" and "being released." So I don't think it is as easy as walking out.

The point I was making is if one woman has had to be moved for her own safety following an interview, why is Begum still there? Why hasn’t she been removed? How did she get her Western clothes and hairdryer? And why is she allowed to dress that way? None of it adds up.

Alsohuman maybe she hasn't been moved as she hasn't been shot or maybe she's in another camp or maybe because she is a different nationality or maybe they were concerned about a 17 year old who had been married off by her mother to an ISIS fighter when she was 11.

The whole point is we don't know and the only difference between you and me is you have decided you do know.

@Stratfordplace

Ancientgran terrible injuries for little children to suffer. How are these children being injured, by accident or at the hands of others. SB has had 3 babies perish in these camps despite not appearing malnourished herself. It must be desperate in the camps but I don’t believe for one minute SB is in danger.

Those children really worried me, the mother/mothers (I wasn't clear which woman they were with but they seemed to stay close to one woman) would only say it was an accident. The children looked in danger to me and I wondered with men being shot that day, the 17 year old shot and the woman trying to escape being beaten with iron bars, were these children maybe attacked as a warning to the mother? Or was it just the older children who were very violent, obviously those children have also been damaged by what they have seen and how they are living.

As I said before heaven help us all when those children grow up, bitter, violent, damaged and with a grudge against the west. If people can't have any empathy for their situation maybe they should think about their own safety in the future. Getting all these kids and their mothers back to their own countries is the only way to hope for our future as well as theirs.

The whole point is we don't know and the only difference between you and me is you have decided you do know

No, the difference between you and me is that you’re being impossibly naive and not questioning anything. None of the questions I’m asking are unreasonable.

But you have decided on the punishment, leaving her there, without any trial or conviction. As I said you have decided I'm open minded.

On the broader issue can you see the danger of leaving these for women and their children living in appalling conditions with the children being brain washed. Can you see a danger looming?

Life is not fair for those men, women and children killed, tortured and mutilated by ISIS.

Life should never be fair again for Shamima Begum.

Sometimes revenge and punishment are justified. This is such a case and I hope her hopes and dreams lie permanently shattered. I hope there are more like her who suffer the same and I hope worse for her.

AncientGran I’m sorry but why would the children grow up to have a grudge against the West. It is not us that are traumatising and abusing them. I’m truly sorry that any child is suffering. Most want to escape to the West and live safe, productive lives free from fear. It’s the likes of SB that has been responsible for terrorising the population.

But you have decided on the punishment, leaving her there, without any trial or conviction. As I said you have decided I'm open minded

I haven’t actually, see what happens when you make assumptions? I want her to be tried in the country where she committed her crimes, by the people she committed them against and punished in accordance with that country’s laws. That’s the justice she deserves.

@Alsohuman

But you have decided on the punishment, leaving her there, without any trial or conviction. As I said you have decided I'm open minded

I haven’t actually, see what happens when you make assumptions? I want her to be tried in the country where she committed her crimes, by the people she committed them against and punished in accordance with that country’s laws. That’s the justice she deserves.

But why should the Syrians and Kurds have to cope with the thousands of Western women and children? We can't just offload out responsibility on a country that is struggling on people who have suffered.

You do want to leave her there for someone else to deal with rather than bring her back here and other countries to take back their citizens.

@Stratfordplace

AncientGran I’m sorry but why would the children grow up to have a grudge against the West. It is not us that are traumatising and abusing them. I’m truly sorry that any child is suffering. Most want to escape to the West and live safe, productive lives free from fear. It’s the likes of SB that has been responsible for terrorising the population.

If you watch the programme some of the women want to come back, not all. The children are too young to know about the west, all they here is we are sinners, infidels, their enemy. They experience no compassion, the women who want to come back are punished if they are considered to be unsympathetic to ISIS. Who is going to teach those children that ISIS is wrong, that they can have a good life int he west and of course they can't because they west won't have them even if they are citizens.

Think about the end of WWII, why do you think the USA gave over one million dollars to Germany, a hell of alot more in today's money. Did they do it to reward the ex nazis or the people who had stood by while the nazis did what they did? No they did it because it made for a safer world.

If people prefer the short term view we need to prepare for the aftermath.

You do want to leave her there for someone else to deal with rather than bring her back here and other countries to take back their citizens

Yes I do. I’d like the UK government to fund the trials and imprisonment.

The problem is if they did 'bring her back and put her on trial' - for what?

They have no evidence of what she may have done over there. So if she comes back surely she'll just be on the streets, among people who haven't associated with suicide bombers, people who burn gay people to death, who chop the heads off of journalists and aid workers.

She was so young and radicalised badly, but what about who she is now? What is she capable of inflicting on people, here, now?

Sorry @StephenBelafonte but at 15, I knew enough about the wider world to know the difference between right and wrong. If she has been 9 at the time of her so called “radicalisation” then I would agree and say she needs rehabilitation; there’s also a world of difference between being sucked in to something going on locally and actually arranging to fly out to support a terrorist group. A decent human being doesn’t support the killing of any race or religion.