Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

520 replies

StephenBelafonte · 18/03/2021 12:39

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.

OP posts:
HermioneMakepeace · 18/03/2021 13:25

It's heartbreaking. The poor girl.

She sewed innocent victims into suicide vests so that they couldn’t escape. How would you feel if it was YOUR child who was blown up? Or is it because the victims were foreign and Muslim you just don’t care?

oneglassandpuzzled · 18/03/2021 13:26

She should come back and be tried and punished if found guilty.

CayrolBaaaskin · 18/03/2021 13:26

She was groomed but it seems was also involved in criminal activity. I agree she should come back and face trial here though.

Chanjer · 18/03/2021 13:27

She was 15

I don't think she should be welcomed back with open arms but she should definitely be repatriated and kept wherever until she's no longer a threat

Removing her passport was posturing bullshit

I don't see why Britain's problem child should be someone elses problem

twelly · 18/03/2021 13:27

She was a 15 year old - naive and in my view manipulated by others. I feel that she was not protected as a 15 year old and as a British citizen should be allowed back to the UK. Once here the British system should operate. I don't believe the actions of the UK government are racist I believe people are scared due to the horrors that the organisation she joined has committed, that is understandable.

TitusPullo · 18/03/2021 13:29

Wow I see the “what if” hysterics are out. I can see why OP asked for a sensible discussion. Compassion isn’t finite, situations aren’t black and white. I can feel compassion for SB’s situation and condone what she has done. I can also feel compassion for the people she’s hurt. It’s not one or the other.

Tal45 · 18/03/2021 13:33

I was glad she wasn't allowed back, I don't believe she could be deradicalised and so she would always be a threat. I don't think the average person at 15 could be groomed into thinking cutting people's heads off is ok. If she had been indoctrinated through childhood or had special needs then I would feel very differently about her.

Mintjulia · 18/03/2021 13:35

Lack of remorse, continued support for extremism, just wants to come home because things aren't so good for her now ISIS is on the back foot....

If she is allowed into the U.K. to lodge her appeal, we won't be able to deport her again. As it stands she left of her own volition.

If she returns with her stated views, she presumably raises a family with the same politics. Which means the authorities either have to be take them into care to protect them from such views (at tax payer's expense) or allowed to grow up in an environment of hate, and create another generation of extremists.

None of the options are in the UK's interests.

Ohnomoreno · 18/03/2021 13:36

I absolutely agree with you but these threads only ever go one way. Also, regardless of her age, she has been absolutely sold to this ideology, and if she is allowed back, it's to the isolation wing of a prison for at least 30 years.

Chanjer · 18/03/2021 13:38

I don't think the average person at 15 could be groomed

Rochdale logic

TheGumption · 18/03/2021 13:38

What I don't understand is that the frothing Daily Mail readers always want criminals here to be deported so their "own country" can deal with them, so why doesn't that apply the other way around? Surely we should deal with our criminals and not expect another country to?

ViciousJackdaw · 18/03/2021 13:38

@wusbanker

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

Agreed.

With you on this one.

Begum is not the only person whose children have died.

I don't mind if she comes back to the UK to serve time but would she even be safe? She'd need to be in protective custody as I suspect there'd be a long queue of people who would like to meet her...

RickiTarr · 18/03/2021 13:38

@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.

I think to understand the government’s stance on this, or the whole situation around returning jihadis, you need to think quite hard about to hat the security services might know, might think and might advise, all of which is secret, obviously.

So reading and imagination are required.

RickiTarr · 18/03/2021 13:39

“what” not “to hat” ^^

QuiteContraryMarie · 18/03/2021 13:39

Has she got some PR working pro bono?
Because she’s gone from being fully burqa’up to jeans, hoodies, hair perfectly coiffed and free of traditional Muslim dress. The cynic in me thinks that the moment she got back to Bethnal Green, she’d be back in a niqab and plotting her next target.

Jaxhog · 18/03/2021 13:40

@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

This.
Fedupmiddleagedwoman · 18/03/2021 13:41

I agree with the decision not to allow her to enter the UK. I don't feel in the slightest bit sorry for her. I don't think it's fair to make her Syria's problem though.

Derbee · 18/03/2021 13:41

If ISIS weren’t being trounced, and she hadn’t ended up in a shitty camp, she’d still be totally on board with their reign of terror.

Groomed or not, she is an evil and dangerous terrorist.

HeartsAndClubs · 18/03/2021 13:41

Not an ounce of sympathy here.

She was 15 not 5. She knew what she was doing, and as an adult she is still sympathetic to that cause while wining about wanting to come back to the safety of the UK.

By comparison James Bulger’s killers were tried as adults and sent to an institution until they were 18. one of them has since re-offended, I don’t see people calling out that “he was just 11 when he was thrown into the prison system, breaks my heart....”

She’s never cared about the murder of innocent civilians. In fact she’s participated in it. Why the hell should we care if she ends up being killed in Syria. What goes around comes around.

And no, I don’t believe there ever were any babies.

RandomLondoner · 18/03/2021 13:42

SB doesn’t have dual nationality, she is just eligible to apply for another nationality, from a country who have understandably said they won’t accept her.

I think it's generally a misconception that you "apply" for a nationality you are entitled to through your parentage. You either have it or not, from birth. If you have citizenship of another country because your parents are from there, you can apply for a passport, which will make it easier to prove to their immigration people they should let you in, but it's not possession of a passport that gives you a right to be there. (I guess this could differ from country to country, but I don't know of any countries that don't work like this.)

If I remember correctly from what I googled the last time I was on a thread about her, she was automatically a citizen of Bangladesh from birth, through her parents, but would lose that citizenship if she did nothing to use or claim it by 21. The UK government cannot remove UK citizenship from someone with no other citizenship to fall back on, by removing her citizenship before she was 21 they can claim to have complied with this requirement. Technically it's the law of Bangladesh removing her citizenship automatically at 21 that has made her stateless.

Defmy · 18/03/2021 13:43

I think what she said about Manchester shows she's a very dangerous adult, regardless of how she got there. There are injustices I'd deal with before this one.

RandomLondoner · 18/03/2021 13:43

I'm aware Bangladesh have always said they wouldn't let her in, but it's not clear to me if that statement has any foundation/validity in Bangladeshi law. It could just be politicians spouting off for the sake of appearances.

nocoolnamesleft · 18/03/2021 13:46

She was a groomed child. She is now a potentially dangerous adult. But she's a British potentially dangerous adult. Bring her back to the UK and hold a proper trial. Don't dump our problem on the rest of the world.

tobee · 18/03/2021 13:48

@MaMaLa321

I love the phrasing of the question. By 'having a sensible discussion' I guess you mean 'a discussion where nobody disagrees with my point of view'. Classic

Since the op has yet to add to her op I don't see how you can conclude that the op brooks no disagreement.

RolloTomassi · 18/03/2021 13:48

You lost me at I just don't understand the hostility towards her by the british government

She's a terrorist, surely it would be more worrying if our government did not treat her as a hostile Hmm