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.

She must be utterly traumatised by losing three babies. Of course I feel sorry for her. How can anyone not? Fifteen is ridiculously young to get married.

I completely agree - she was a child, she was groomed and radicalised, yes, she seems to still hold radical opinions and have limited/no remorse, but I still fail to see why she couldn't have been repatriated and tried for her crimes just like all the terrorists who happen to be living in the UK (many of whom I suspect also have dual citizenship). Right to a fair trial is a basic tenet of British democracy and I think it's awful we've just washed our hands of her because of a convenient legal loophole.

@HermioneWeasley

“Teenage mistakes” are things like drinking too much cider and being sick on your parents new sofa

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

Totally agree, I think the use of 'grooming' shows a naive lack of understanding of 15/16 years olds, it's the cope out card. What excuse can they come up with for the Bulger murderers?

I feel genuinely very sorry for her. And do believe she was a child who was brainwashed. However I also think that the government do know more than we do about her risk factor to the uk if she returned. It feels like a situation with very few solutions.

The girl has been to hell and back

She's still there.

Could she realistically be tried for the crimes she's apparently committed here?
I am not a lawyer but I can't help feeling the extremely high standards of proof required would surely be impossible after so long has passed.
That means the government would have to let her live a normal life.
Given the attitude of a significant number of people - she would surely be at serious risk of harm, so would need 24/7 protection - which would be very expensive.

There's no evidence she was groomed.

As others have said jack letts had his citizenship revoked so it's not a race issue.

However she doesn't have any other citizenship unlike jack who was also Canadian.

One part of me is glad things have worked out as they have, if the IS was still thriving I've no doubt she'd still be there, the other part is sad for her and how it's turned out living in a Syrian detention camp will all her kids dead.

Legally speaking I can't see how they can justify removal of citizenship - she should come home and face trial.

I think a lot of people will feel be bitter that if she does come hone she will be fed house and supported for her entire life by the state - she can never be self sufficient now. But this situation and similar like it must have happened thousands of times and because we are are democratic western country who respects human rights ( in theory) it can't be any other way.

At the age of 15, if she was reasonably intelligent,she should have been aware of things like ISIS, etc., and all that was going on around her over there. I don't know if she ever got into anything nasty and violent, but she was foolish to think that she could just come back home, when things went wrong for her. Radicalised or not, she has been mixed up with terrorists, which is the worst thing ever,

She, Shamina Begum was a leader who joined in because she wanted the Islamists to triumph. As they did when they attacked the Yazedi people. As they did with beheading 'offenders' and throwing Gay blokes off buildings. To her that was good.
She was calculating and took her relations/friends to Turkey and join up with the main army. They were sacrificed to make Shamina look good.
NOT merely teenage mistakes that went wrong.

@Silvercatowner

The girl has been to hell and back

She's still there.

If the claims are true, she subjected others to hell as well and is seemingly unrepentant.

Unless they know something we don't.

This reminds me of the imaginary WMDs in Iraq. Everyone was saying, ooh, the government must know more than they're saying. But they really didn't. It was all just fear mongering. In this case too, that's what it seems like.

I don't want her here. Nothing to do with her skin. Everything to do with the atrocities she has committed and taken part in.

I agree with AnneE. There is little tangible evidence to convict her or put her away for a long time. The British public would go batshit if she was swanning around, especially if she still held radical views.

It’s either over there, or over here, free as a bird. The Human rights lawyers would froth at the mouth for this case.

Isn’t she the one whose dad used to take her on extremist rallies. One of them did.

@Mintjulia

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.

Precisely. As for feeling sorry for her, I can't muster up compassion for someone who knowingly was accessory to murder, rape and slavery. She seems to have shown zero remorse for her crimes and the lives she has devastated...Seems very sorry for herself though.

With regard to the similarities with the Jack Letts case, I think there are some significant differences.

Firstly, Jack Letts was an adult when he left the UK. Shamima Begum was 15. For me, that is a significant difference.

Secondly, Jack Letts asked to return to the UK in 2017. The UK government only decided to strip him of his British citizenship about two years later. They clearly found it a much easier decision in Shamina Begum's case because that decision was made within a week.

Jack was only stripped of his citizenship after Shamima was stripped of hers. Would they have revoked his citizenship if they had not already set the precedent with Shamima? I don't think so, otherwise why didn't they do it immediately in 2017?

Either way, I think it was wrong to revoke Jack Letts' citizenship in any case. Why dump him on Canada? They were both our responsibility and they both should have faced our justice system. We should not be treating British citizens differently just because they may have a claim to dual nationality through their parents. If they were born here and have grown up here, they are every bit as British as the next person, and they should have the same basic rights as anyone else. I find the idea that we have created a whole second class version of citizenship for these individuals to be extremely worrying, and I think it could have extremely dangerous consequences.

A British drug smuggler caught in a foreign country would be tried and put in jail in that country. Begum has committed crimes in Syria, let them judge her and imprison her.

@SecretThermalsAreTheBest

I think a lot of the hostility comes after an interview filmed recently (i.e. in 2019 when she was 19 and no longer a child) when she showed absolutely no remorse and no regret. She essentially said she thought what ISIS were doing was right and she didn't regret going to be part of it...

If she'd shown remorse people might be bit more understanding?

As for the 2019 interview. How do we know if this is what she actually does or did think. I remember that she was already putting herself at risk by speaking to journalists. As far as I’m aware, she would have been murdered for betraying ISIS had she expressed remorse or not toed the line. We have no way of knowing her actual beliefs either way. All we do know is that she was traumatised by the death of her children and heavily pregnant or had just given birth. I think the latter.

Apart from anything else, she's being left stateless. That's dusgraceful. She's being doomed to permanent refugee status.

In my view we have a responsibility to bring her back to the UK so she can be properly supervised and controlled. I take the point she was only 15 when she was radicalised, but the key point is the risk she poses now. There is a very significant history of radicalised people going on to reoffend in a more serious way. I have to say that from the news footage I have seen, she did not appear to have many regrets.

We have no way of knowing her actual beliefs either way.

Exactly. If people are going to have citizenship stripped for expressing the wrong opinions (!) then at least some effort should be made to consider the context in which those opinions are expressed.

@SmeleanorSmellstrop

It's heartbreaking. The poor girl.

Save your heart-bleeding for the victims of terrorism. You think she'd be sympathetic if your children had been killed by ISIS?

They'll know a lot more than we do and it is one of those cases that REALLY makes you take stock.

The thing I keep coming back to is that she was not been refused re-entry to the UK, was not summarily banned. But had to make her legal case to return from outside the UK, which is, as far as I can tell normal and was passed as legal by a court this year.

She is a radicalised woman with a husband who is an IS fighter whose letters exhort her to do what is good for their future. Nothing about what we know says she has shown any remorse, she just doesn't like the conditions and wants to come back...to what?

More of the same people seeking her out and making something more of a martyr of her, ensuring she remains radicalised, a threat? Prison, house arrest forever? A security risk forever?

She's no the only female to be made stateless. A very quick Google gets:
Aqsa Mahmood, Grace Dare, Sally Jones, all three Dawood sisters

And white males have been left in the same situation
Jihadi Jack (Canada might repatriate him)

There are 800 - 1500 UK citizens out there, with IS.

As far as the law, government is concerned this is about national security and not any one individual. And I am not sure that I could make a different decision about any of them!

She has never shown remorse. I don't have sympathy for her. I feel very sorry for her children. She did refuse to allow her baby to return to the uk without her. She could have saved her baby's life.
I do agree that she is Britain's problem though.