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Original poster

Would you join a terrorist organisation to avoid splitting up your family?

154 replies

HeartsAndClubs · 07/10/2021 11:22

Rhetorical question obviously.

Islamic State mother Nicole Jack says 'don't sweep us under carpet' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58814804

This woman is bleating on about how she and her children should be allowed to return to the UK, and says openly that the only reason she joined ISIS was because her husband did and she didn’t want to split up her family.

This wasn’t a teenager who some might argue could have been groomed, this was a mother of 4, a grown woman, who made a conscious choice to put the ISIS ideology before the welfare of her children, and now she feels she deserves sympathy.

Surely if splitting up her family had been the only reason, she would have moved on after his death, rather than marrying another terrorist?

And surely saying that she hasn’t seen a beheading doesn’t mean she doesn’t know that they happen?

I just can’t imagine on what planet someone who is of moral thinking would actually be so desperate to keep their family together that they would join isis to do it.

Obviously she clearly didn’t do it for that reason. Obviously she believes in what ISIS stands for, but thinks she can pull that sympathy card now.

If anything I think the children could be brought back and placed in care here to get them away from her.

OP posts:
OhWhyNot · 07/10/2021 22:32

Op our prisons have a number of criminals fighting extradition

Violent dangerous men

They would rather stay here as prison is far harsher in their own country

Do you think they should stay here ? Or be send back ?

Chloemol · 07/10/2021 22:32

She had a choice, go with her terrorist husband, or stay here with her children and prove she is not a terrorist

She chose the former, she knew what she was letting herself in for, she can stay where she is

Fatya · 07/10/2021 22:34

I wonder if you have empathy for the children who have been left without mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters due to the actions of terrorists?
You are windmilling quite spectacularly.

What on earth makes you think I wouldn't?

BreadPita · 07/10/2021 22:38

A lot of people don't see British people as British if they're not white. She, her children and her husband are all products of Britain and should be dealt with by Britain.

Missmissmiiiiiiiiisss · 07/10/2021 22:41

@Pythonista

I wonder if you have empathy for the children who have been left without mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters due to the actions of terrorists?
Yes. That’s the great thing about empathy, you can’t use it up.
OhWhyNot · 07/10/2021 22:42

A lot of people don't see British people as British if they're not white. She, her children and her husband are all products of Britain and should be dealt with by Britain

Absolutely agree

Pythonista · 07/10/2021 22:43

Of course - if she was white (I presume she isn't) then everyone would welcome her back with open arms Hmm

KittenKong · 07/10/2021 22:44

I heard this on R4 today and couldn’t quite believe it. She trotted off to ISIS when she knew what they were all about because her balloon of a husband wanted to go. She had 4 kids - yeah, and I’d have said ‘off you go then’.

And after he was killed, she married another terrorist.

She had no excuse in the interview, and seemed to genuinely not think that she had done anything wrong. Her mum didn’t seem to be too outraged at what she’d done either.

Poor kids though.

LarryUnderwood · 07/10/2021 22:51

She should face the consequences here like any other British criminal. Resources are neither here nor there- she's our responsibility as a British citizen. It's really as simple as that as far as I can see. Same with Shamima Begum. Once we start stripping people of their citizenship because of one crime or another we've crossed a line that we shouldn't.

EsmaCannonball · 07/10/2021 23:09

Jack Letts is white and he's been left in a Syrian prison with his British citizenship revoked.

I think any parent who takes their children into a war zone full of bombs, beheadings, torturers and slavery should be too shamefaced to talk about having their best interests at heart.

PowerNap · 08/10/2021 07:32

The innocent victims of Nazis in Germany sent their kids away on the kindertransport knowing that in all likelihood, they would never see them again.

Despite doing nothing wrong, they made the unthinkable decision to send their kids away into the unknown in the hope of saving their lives.

That's what it means to put your children first. You get them out of a terrible, dangerous situation, even if it means being parted for ever.

encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kindertransport-1938-40

KittenKong · 08/10/2021 07:43

Of course. You would do anything for the good of your kids of you are any type of decent parent. Trot after your husband - who must’ve been a loon - and not be thinking ‘thank god, good to get rid’. It then she had had 4 kids with him, so maybe she is just a woman who wanted to cuckoo in a country she didn’t belong to, oppress the people who lived there, steal their property, brutalise them, watch in as they are raped/sold/murdered...

Biancadelrioisback · 08/10/2021 08:23

@LarryUnderwood

She should face the consequences here like any other British criminal. Resources are neither here nor there- she's our responsibility as a British citizen. It's really as simple as that as far as I can see. Same with Shamima Begum. Once we start stripping people of their citizenship because of one crime or another we've crossed a line that we shouldn't.
Totally agree.
OhWhyNot · 08/10/2021 08:34

How many threads have we had on Jack Letts? how many headline news stories with mock disbelief that he wants to come home

Of course the reporting and responses are different because she isn’t white to many she isn’t really British

Being male he isn’t as vulnerable in a society that sees all women as second class citizens if that

KittenKong · 08/10/2021 08:35

When I heard her on the radio I assumed she was white (default I know but I really had no idea if her colour).

OhWhyNot · 08/10/2021 08:35

And I quite sure the many people who believe she should stay there and face the consequences would also agree that prisoners fighting extradition from our prisons (as it’s an easier sentence here) feel they should be sent home

NoCauseRebel · 08/10/2021 08:48

When I heard her on the radio I assumed she was white (default I know but I really had no idea if her colour). so did I. Her name is Nicole Jack, I haven’t seen a picture so had no reason to assume she wasn’t white.

People use the “you wouldn’t say this if it was a white person” to dilute the argument. She could be white for all I know, she’s still a terrorist sympathiser.

As for questioning whether prisoners in the UK should be sent back to their own countries, my view is that criminals should face the consequences in the countries where they have committed a crime.

So, don’t want to be executed for smuggling drugs? Don’t smuggle drugs in a country which carries the death penalty if you’re caught.

Don’t want to be beheaded for murder? Don’t go out to Saudi and murder anyone.

These criminals aren’t our responsibility if they’re committing crimes in other countries. They’re answerable to the laws of the country where they commit a crime.

So, if someone murders someone over here then no, I don’t think they should be extradited to their own country to be executed, because they carried out their crime in the UK.

By the same token if someone commmits a serious crime in a country with harsher penalties, no I don’t think they should be brought back here to face justice in a country where they wouldn’t be punished so harshly, because they committed their crimes elsewhere.

If you join a terrorist organisation and go out to a country to fight and behead the locals, then you’re their responsibility when it all goes wrong.

silentpool · 08/10/2021 08:53

I'm a bit over people who hate the West but want to enjoy the benefits of it at the same time. So the mother can stay, she wanted ISIS, she got it and should live the dream.

The kids on the other hand, should come back to the UK as they did not get an informed choice and should not have to suffer for their mother's poor choices.

apalledandshocked · 08/10/2021 09:09

@Biancadelrioisback

It feels very much like in the future we'll be allowed to kick people out of the country who commit certain crimes. We are currently housing some absolute monsters in our prisons who's personal crimes are horrendous. But we don't. Because they are citizens.
But who would want them? And why should other countries take our citizens. We used to have Australia of course but I don't think they'd be thrilled to be told we were sending them some boats...
EsmaCannonball · 08/10/2021 09:47

There were loads of articles and television reports on Jack Letts and his parents when he was deemed newsworthy. If they all started to pipe up again, or if the Syrians release him from prison, he'll plague the news cycle again.

The argument about extradition is illogical as extradition is about prosecuting individuals in the countries where they have committed their crimes. This woman was part of a terrorist organisation which committed its war crimes in Syria and Iraq. She's in the right place, her children are not.

PlanDeRaccordement · 08/10/2021 10:09

Yes. She is a terrorist, so she should be tried over here and live with the consequences of being a British citizen who commited a crime. Leaving her behind is only going to fire her children up to fight and hate us.

UK is past the point of making that choice as other British ISIS women have already been tried and sentenced where they were captured. There is no reason to give Nicole Jack or Shamina Begum special treatment compared to other British citizens.

PlanDeRaccordement · 08/10/2021 10:11

@Stompythedinosaur

I think it is fair to say that a mother who isn't able to resist their husband's wish to take the family to a dangerous war zone is probably not in the same mental space as I have the luck to be.

When I see a mother who isn't able to resist their partner to keep their dc safe, I generally assume their life experience includes abuse and trauma.

It's massively arrogant for those of us who have had better life experiences to assume the reason we can make good choices is because we are better people. We probably aren't, just luckier.

I feel sorry for these women mostly. I think our government should at the least allow the dc to return to live with their grandparents.

That assumes she wasn’t in complete agreement with her husband. She did not resist, because she agreed and wanted to join ISIS. She has only said she did not want to split up her family, which indicates her husband offered to go to ISIS alone but she said, fuck that, I’m coming too with the kids.
PlanDeRaccordement · 08/10/2021 10:14

@fashionSOS

I'd take the kids back, because it's really unfair to judge people for the actions of their parents. However, I'm not sure we could do that legally - splitting up a family?

If she was a decent mother, she'd plead for the UK to take her kids without her, seeing as we don't want her. Isn't that what good mums do - put their children's welfare above their own?

The U.K. has already offered to send the children back to the UK but she refused to allow the children back without her even though she knows the children would live with their grandmother, an NHS nurse.

She doesn’t need to plead for UK to take her children back, she needs to stop refusing permission to send them back.

PlanDeRaccordement · 08/10/2021 10:15

@Biancadelrioisback

It feels very much like in the future we'll be allowed to kick people out of the country who commit certain crimes. We are currently housing some absolute monsters in our prisons who's personal crimes are horrendous. But we don't. Because they are citizens.
This has been in UK and International law for almost two centuries. There is nothing new about a criminal being tried and sentenced in the country where they committed their crimes.
anon12345678901 · 08/10/2021 10:16

Nope she can stay there and rot with the other one. Her children are able to come back and if she was any kind of mother she would allow that to give them a better life.