Shamima Begum

[Mamabear04]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2n8xv61x3o

I'll admit I actually don't know much about this apart from it being on the news when it happened and I did watch a documentary about it. Do you think she should be allowed to have British citizenship? I mean she was a child when it happened, surely she was groomed? And now stateless, doomed to live indefinitely in a camp with nowhere to go? I think running away to join Isis is of course absolutely awful but surely she should be treated as a child that was groomed? Or am I missing something?

Governments can make unlawful decisions. The courts can and do over-rule them. Eg the prorogation case.

This isn't about 'poor little Shamima', not for me. I don't support her, I don't absolve her of responsibility, I don't think she's likely to ever tell the truth about what she did or didn't do or what she truly believes.

This is about using her as a scapegoat. The government has allowed adults, some male, who are fully culpable for their decision to join IS and will have actually taken up arms for IS, to come back here. Whether you are let free or kept in a foreign prison camp, and whether you lose your UK citizenship, shouldn't be based on how infamous you are, or how likeable you are. She is our problem and we can apparently manage others who've done what she has and worse. So why not her?

She could be prosecuted in the UK for being a member of a proscribed organisation and possibly for other crimes.

The evidence available strongly suggests she did commit crimes overseas, where she appears to have been an enforcer in the morality police. We know that our intelligence services have evidence that she is a threat to the UK's security, although we don't know the nature of that evidence.

I've not had my passport checked leaving the UK for decades. I can't remember the last time it was checked (by government authorities as opposed to the airline).

I am not sure we have the infrastructure to check under 16s (or anyone). I suppose a no fly warning eg for someone who's committed an offence gets picked up by the airlines?

They have overridden many government decisions, eg the Rwanda law. A pp mentioned Boris's prorogation of parliament. They ruled that we needed a parliamentary vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal. Just to name but a few instances where they've held the government to account.

I am not saying they can't get things wrong, but I do think they have rather more knowledge and expertise than MNers who know nothing about immigration, terrorism or citizenship laws and the judges are therefore well equipped to make decisions.

And they have not had their citizenship removed. That’s the point.

She needs to be brought back here and put on trial if she can be charged with offences. If not, she will be monitored.

Have you seen there are 14 pages of comments? Do you maybe think that this has already been discussed?

Oh come on, there’s been a fair amount of in-depth reporting on the case by this point, with various pieces of corroborated evidence. I suggest taking a listen to the podcast “I’m not a monster” if you are interested in the case and want to have an opinion that is informed.

Bullshit. Complete bullshit.

The courts only job was to ask if what the Home Secretary did was legal. Nothing to do with it being the “right decision”, or the courts supporting it. The question was - did the Home Secretary have the legal power to strip her of her citizenship. The answer is yes he did. So no the courts can’t override that decision.

Not bullshit at all. You clearly don't understand how the courts work when reviewing ministerial decisions.

You said the courts decided they do not have the power to override the Home Secretary's decision. That is absolutely not what they decided.

No, they don't decide if it is the right decision. But nor is it as simple as asking if the Home Secretary had the power to strip her of citizenship.

For a decision by a minister to be legal, it must be supported by adequate evidence (amongst other things). To quote the judgement of the Court of Appeal on the evidence from the security services, "The evidence as a whole does support the original assessment." That was their view of the evidence we are not allowed to see. If they concluded that the evidence did not support the original assessment, that would have been grounds for overturning the Home Secretary's decision.

The Court of Appeal also looked at evidence that has emerged since the Home Secretary's decision and concluded that, "taken together and at its highest, [it] did not require the matter to be referred back to the Secretary of State." So, they do not think that any new evidence has emerged that would justify overturning the decision.

The courts job is to intervene if the government does something that’s illegal. The gov can make stupid, unfair, unjust political decisions all they want, and naught the court can do unless it’s specifically unlawful. The decision to strip Begum of her citizenship was a political decision because of how profile her case was. As pp’s have pointed out, many others , including adult men who went to fight , have been allowed to return.

You said the courts decided they do not have the power to override the Home Secretary's decision. That is absolutely not what they decided

they didn’t have the power to override the decision because it was lawful (they concluded) . Not because it was the “right decision”.

Their job was simply to decide whether it was legal or not.

No, deciding that the decision was lawful does not mean they didn't have the power to override the decision. It means that they aren't going to use that power.

In any event, the way you phrased your post suggested that the courts gave the case a cursory look, decided they didn't have the power to overrule the Home Secretary and that was it. That is clearly not what happened. The courts looked at the evidence and decided it supported the Home Secretary's decision.

To say again, for the Home Secretary's decision to be lawful is not simply a question of whether he had the necessary power. The courts also considered whether the evidence he considered was adequate to support his decision. Which somewhat undermines your suggestion that this was a purely political decision.

your post suggested that the courts gave the case a cursory look

i didn’t imply any such thing. they gave the case a detailed look to consider whether the decision was lawful. It is not their job to decide whether it was correct- that is the power of the Secretary of State.

No, deciding that the decision was lawful does not mean they didn't have the power to override the decision. It means that they aren't going to use that power

Sorry I think this is parsing. The courts cannot overturn lawful political decisions made by the government, that’s not how our democracy / system of law works.

It absolutely was a political decision. The courts can consider whether the gov had made *findings of fact that are unsupported by any evidence, or on a view of the evidence that could not reasonably be held. It is not their job to decide whether it was a good or right decision based on the evidence.

Well, of course if someone tells you they are not a monster then you must automatically, unquestionably believe them. No reason for Begum to lie through her teeth at all. No reason to take advantage of the naive and gullible. We must all assume everyone is lovely and fluffy, even when they have gone along with slavery and beheadings and suicide bombings. Even when beheading videos were a draw for them in the first place. She's just a lovely girl.

lol that’s just the title of the podcast.
I’m suggesting a listen as it’s based on some really exceptional quality investigative journalism and provides a lot of insight into the case.

The point is none of those individuals left the country to join a terrorist group. They were caught here and charged, convicted here.

IS brides role included keeping Yasidi women in check, the IS husbands raped the Yasidi women. The brides beat them amongst other roles.

Again, 300 others who left this country to join IS have been allowed back. Men and women. Why are they ok to be here but she's not? She's a scapegoat.

You don't need to be a lovely girl to be a UK citizen. That's not the criteria. We have taken back other monsters.

She should stand trial - but I don’t see how the government can in effect leave a British citizen stranded in another part of the world. As far as I understand, she doesn’t hold valid citizenship anywhere else.

She's not a British citizen and hasn't been for years.

The offences were committed in Syria. She should stand trial for offences committed there in Syria along with other IS brides who helped their IS husbands rape, beat and enslave them.

Has everyone forgotten the Yasidi girls and women who were raped and beaten in their haste to remember poor SB

You may not have intended that, but that is how your post read.

*Labour are lawless ( Look at Khans London for evidence if you don’t believe me).

why would anyone believe such nonsense?

Do tell - who would you like to see ‘run London’?
The Tory Party (and party they certainly did) had 14 years and 5 different PM’s try to govern the country and failed with massive consequences for us all. Surely you don’t want a Tory Party member running London into the ground too?
Enough is enough.

And once a 15 year old has got to Syria, realised her error and then been forced into a marriage, how much power do you think they have to escape/tell their husband not to rape anyone/refuse to beat someone? Yes there would have been moments she could have shown kindness (and maybe she did or didn’t) but she didn’t have CHOICE from the moment she entered the territory. She was in a highly abusive marriage and her choices were to do what she was told or die.