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?

YANBU OP, I feel so desperately sorry for her.
How she has been treated by the British state is an abomination , and shouldn’t be allowed under international law.

Not sure about his hair colour but Jihadi Jack is about as white and middle-class as you can possibly get and he had his citizenship revoked and was tried in the country where he committed his crimes, as tends to happen when you commit crimes abroad.

She was a vulnerable 15 yr old girl. She ran away. Her best friend persuaded her online. She shouldn’t be paying for this for the rest of her life, she more than suffered the consequences of her bad decisions at that time.

Oh well if it’s distasteful I guess that Bangladesh should not be allowed to make its own laws. Law by good taste will be a riot, possibly in more than one sense.

Clearly that is not a logical conclusion from my pointing out that the UK government is not behaving well. I have not proposed changing any laws, in either country, or suggested creating laws by taste.

I don't think that "it's not illegal" is sufficient justification for pushing one's own problems onto others. I expect better of myself, and I expect better of my government.

This

No she didn't. Until the age of 21 she had the right to apply for Bangladeshi citizenship because her father was born there. She had no guarantee she would get it. It would seem unlikely any application would succeed given that the Bangladeshi government has said publicly they would not allow her to enter the country.

You feel "desperately sorry" for this terrorist?!

Luckily sanity prevails within the British state and international law.

None of what you say here is anything resembling a fact

She said this in an interview she did years ago. She talked about watchibg beheadings and watching them in a very cold way. Her earlier interviews are very different to her latest approach.

Yes I feel sorry for her. You may call her a “terrorist”, but actually she’s a human. A human who is living the consequences of a stupid decision she made to run away, age 15.

She lived life in Isis as a domestic slave. She was imprisoned “at home” and subject to relentless sexual, physical and emotional abuse by a violent adult man. She lost three babies.

Now she is stateless, facing the prospect of living the rest of her life imprisoned in purgatory in a Syrian refugee camp, when so many others in her situation who did the same , have been returned home.

She has been singled out simply because she was made notorious in the media, and the British gov decided to arbitrarily strip her of her citizenship to win political points and pacify the mob.

This is nothing like what I call “sanity”.

In this sky interview she describes how she had seen beheadings and was alright with that. It's Sharia law. She seemed to enjoy living under IS rule until they were defeated. She lost British citizenship when she was 19 and at that time still had Bangladesh citizenship which she had until she was 21.

https://news.sky.com/story/she-sounded-largely-unrepentant-what-happened-when-sky-news-tracked-down-shamima-begum-11640713

I wonder how many of those who are saying they feel sorry for her would have her living with them, she made a choice to travel with her three friends herself to that country, no one forced her to go, I feel no ounce of sympathy for her.

I think you mean a massive failing by her parents

Imagine your son bringing her home as his girlfriend 😬😬

She said she loved her husband. She enjoyed living there at first. She liked living under Sharia law. However, IS were mainly defeated and she ended up in a refugee camp. That's when she wanted to return to Britain. Her father lives in Bangladesh still. Millions has been spent on this terrorist sympathiser and lots done in recent years so she will appeal more. She was an adult when she said she watched beheadings and was 'alright with it'.

"But Shamima Begum does not. She embraced life in IS. She was happy.
She says she married a wonderful man in IS (27-year old Dutchman called Yago Reidijk, now being held in a Kurdish prison)."

Not sure about his hair colour but Jihadi Jack is about as white and middle-class as you can possibly get and he had his citizenship revoked and was tried in the country where he committed his crimes, as tends to happen when you commit crimes abroad.

So why is SB not being tried abroad? There are plenty of posts saying she should come back and face justice here. Is it normal for people who commit crimes abroad to be tried in UK?

You have no idea what she “felt”. was a child who was brainwashed then traumatised. She’d been living this dogma for four years. She was also living in a camp surrounded by people who expressed those beliefs - that was her community and her safety in that context - it was entirely unreasonable for her to be in a state of mind to challenge, speak out , be reflective at that time.

This was a young woman who had literally just given birth, she was intensely vulnerable and in a state of pure survival. She was Just 19 years old. Her two babies had died- she watched them stave to death . she’d be living in conditions of famine and war. she’d suffered three + years of child sexual exploitation and domestic abuse. Of course her affect was flat. You can see in her eyes she is beyond exhausted.

It was quite frankly irresponsible for this white British male journalist to be interviewing her at this time , then taking her words at face value to try her in the court of public opinion and sentence her for life. All they were were words.

@Tandora I don't know what she felt. I do know what she said, as per her interviews.

I think the lawyers and courts were correct. It's been appealed and constantly fought against at an exorbitant cost. She lost again. There are more causes that I'd rather support that a terrorist sympathiser, who clearly states she was ok with beheadings etc etc

I agree with previous posters that if she doesn't hold Bangladeshi citizenship, then the UK is making her stateless and should not be doing so.

On a more general point, even an academically successful 15yo girl still has teenage hormones and a need for external validation. ISIS promised her a husband, an exciting one, a freedom fighter, a kind of extremist equivalent of dating the captain of the football team. That's how she got radicalised, because there was something in it for her. She was naive, she was probably sexually driven, and the idea that she is so dangerous that she can't be controlled in a country that until recently allowed Anjem Choudhary to be at liberty is ridiculous.

This is a populist decision and the law courts shouldn't be acting on that basis.

@Tandora

You may call her a “terrorist”, but actually she’s a human.

All terrorists are human. What's your point?

More of her lovely chat

"She said she had been partly inspired to join IS by videos of fighters beheading hostages and also of "the good life" under the group."

When asked about Manchester arena she said 'that IS considered it justified as retaliation for the coalition bombing of IS-held areas'

How about rape, enslavement and murder of Yasidi women, she said well 'Shia do the same'.

What a strange comment. Why would she be living with anyone?
Anyway we think she should be brought back and tried. No to live with random strangers from the internet

She lost British citizenship at 19 when she still legally had Bangladesh citizenship. Bangladesh citizenship was lost at age 21. So she wasn't stateless when she lost British citizenship.