To feel sorry for Shamima Begum?

[EWAS]

I do, I’m afraid. I think she should be able to come home. She was 15! Have any men been stripped of their citizenship that we know about?

Whilst young yes, she played the fuck around and find out game. Ah well

3 dead children and essentially trafficked at 15.
I do. Unless the government think she is actually a risk?

I don't feel sorry for her.

I feel a bit sorry for Syria who seemingly have to keep her because we've washed our hands of her. She's our terrorist we should pay for the cost of her incarceration.

We know Jack Letts was stripped of his UK citizenship, but that's a different case. He actually held Canadian citizenship all his life and continues to be a Canadian citizen. (Canada wasn't happy about the UK making Letts their sole responsibility either.) Begum has become stateless, which should not be permitted under international law.

I always find it amazing because if I was 15 ad a blonde white English teenager who hanged out a lot with different people from different cultures and had left the country in the way she did there would have been an instant search to find me, and I would have been classed as kidnapped from grooming.

I agree! She was 15 ffs, I just feel she’s being made an example of.

I do in the sense that I think at 15 she was groomed (especially as the grooming process would have started when she was even younger). When she got out there and find the reality somewhat different she must have been terrified. Having and losing 3 babies is just awful for anyone. She is undoubtedly traumatised.

The question is whether her experiences and that trauma mean she is a broken young woman who needs the care of her country or whether she supports ISIS and represents a risk to the UK.

Personally, I think there's an element of national responsibility -she's a British woman who we let become brainwashed in the first place so surely she should be here, even if she's not allowed to live freely.

I feel sorry for her too

My heart breaks for her. I'm the mum of a 15yo and she makes some stupid decisions. Thankfully not on this scale, but I can see how a 15yo would.

She didn't just make one mistake followed by horror and remorse though did she.

No sympathy from me.

@LankyCranky32

How stupid

You missed out the 'isis' part. You know, terror related bit

No comparison at all there

I don’t

But how many appeals does she get and who is paying the lawyers to keep going?

@LankyCranky32’s observation isn’t stupid.

This situation seems to constantly reported and discussed as if it were a soap opera. Like, she a goodie or baddie, is she likeable or not? But the key issue is this:

Begum has become stateless, which should not be permitted under international law

Thank you @Precipice

I agree OP. She was a groomed child who's been treated far worse than many adult men who did the same.

Exactly

Plenty other men and women have come back to the uk after doing same. Is keeping her on a watch list really beyond the whole combined effort of MI5? We are relying on charities to feed her in a Refugee camp for the rest of her life. Even murderers get out after 30 years. I don’t get why she above all others can’t come back and face whatever Justice they think she needs here.

I can sympathise with being so young, and being caught up in something which turned out to have terrible consequences. I naturally feel compassion for the loss of her children, and I can empathise with the desperation she must feel at never being allowed back to the UK.

None of this means that what she did was okay. But I don't think that washing our hands of her was the right thing to do, and there is a risk of her becoming a martyr-figure, which might have consequences for other young people. If she is such a danger, perhaps bringing her back to the UK, where she can be questioned, tried and possibly imprisoned, seems like a more sensible but less showy option. This seems more like a politician wanting to make a dramatic gesture than a well-thought-out course of action, based on the best probably outcome.

I think sorry is the wrong word. I feel like she made a very bad decision but now there's no coming back from it. She's a poster girl for ISIS Brides ffs. As if it would even be safe for her to come back to the UK. No doubt she wants to be a celebrity etc. She seems like she 'repenting' for all the wrong reasons, for her own gain, not because she is sorry.
So in her case I'd say she shouldn't get to come back. Other women, it may be different, and each case should be dealt with on it's own merit.

YANBU OP.

Yes. I do not condone what she has done but am uncomfortable that a decision (especially one possibly made due to being radicalised online) made when she was a minor can result in her losing her citizenship. I don't think she would have been aware of that consequence at 15. I'd feel less uncomfortable if it was an adult. It also feels a little hypercritical as the UK gov can only do this because, in theory, she could apply for citizenship in Bangledesh. She's the UKs 'problem' not Bangledesh or Syria's - it feels like the UK is dumping its responsibilities.

This 💯 who's paying for these appeals?
I'm not at all convinced she is wanting to come back to the UK to go under the radar and get on with life. Far from it!

I agree with you @EWAS . She was so young and then she didn’t help herself in earlier interviews (as she was still so young and needed better guidance).

I think she’s a complete idiot but she is a British idiot so she should be allowed to come home, even if it is to face terror charges.

YANBU to feel sorry for her as an individual but this was the right decision.

She is very high profile and unfortunately this is a powerful deterrent to others. That is 100% the right public policy outcome.

I think she was being made an example of. She was only 15 when she ran away from home. She was just a child when she was groomed. She's now stateless and it's because of a technicality in law that she's been made stateless. I read the article about the ruling. Basically because her parents are Bangladashi citizen, she has the right to apply for citizenship before 21. She was 19 when they took away her British citizenship.

If it were my child that has been groomed and rang away with a gang, and wanted to come home now after losing 3 children, I'd want her home.