Shamima Begum - misogyny at its finest?

[Schmoana]

Just saw the interview on GMB. It has struck me for a long time that there are hundreds of male ISIS fighters who are British citizens who have been allowed back and prosecuted where appropriate, even without grooming being a factor, and having been directly involved in killing. It’s hardly even reported. But this one woman has been vilified by the British people and British media, and made the figurehead of all that is wrong with ISIS. Her British citizenship has been stripped for populism.

Why is this one woman being held to different standards? What is the difference here between her and the hundreds of men who have been accepted back?

OP pointed out all the men who have been treated differently

But they haven’t been treated differently, OP was incorrect. If anything they have had less press and less sympathy.

The idea that she could suddenly be told that she is not British any more because of her father's birthplace is abhorrent

Oh don't be so dramatic. She would have to do something pretty abhorrent for this to happen. This is not by any means unique to the UK.

@PlanDeRaccordement

There's nothing preventing repatriation Except UK government. My point was their decision is not illegal or unusual as you were implying. Most countries are not repatriating ISIS members.

Where did I imply it was illegal or unusual? Please do point that out. I'll wait...

I've clearly said that international law in this area lags behind practical reality and that the USA is one of the few countries repatriating. That clearly implies that repatriation is not common and that's made clear in the sources I've linked

You're the one claiming that you're stating what the law requires.
Of course you aren't but that clearly is no impediment to your self-belief

@PlanDeRaccordement

Justice applying equally to everyone when it patently doesn’t then you leave yourself open to radicals pointing that out to their target audience

But you are arguing that Begum deserves different preferential treatment from all the 120 other British ISIS members...that flies in the face of justice applied equally does it not? And is she the right poster girl for such an exception to justice applied equally and to all?

Nope. We're arguing the the British government should take responsibility for all of its FTFs and stop dumping them in nations Ill-equipped to deal with them

@PlanDeRaccordement

There's nothing preventing repatriation Except UK government. My point was their decision is not illegal or unusual as you were implying. Most countries are not repatriating ISIS members.

Links please.

International law says it is illegal to leave anyone citizenless.

So our govt in their wisdom.

Tried to palm her off on the Dutch I think.

When that didn't work.

Bangladesh. This is a wealthy stable country with a certain amount of international power.

Finding a loophole to hand off one of our citizens from birth.

To a country which she has no connection with apart from her parents. She can't speak the language. She doesn't know the culture.

We are using a loophole in an outrageous way to pass on this person. In particular and not all the men in similar circs who came back no fuss. This particular person who is a product of our society. And as British as they come. To.

What exactly? What was their motivation for putting the spotlight on her out of all the others?

And on here since the start posters have said. Keep her out she's a risk.

Where is she more of a risk?

Here in prison or other heavily scrutinised circumstances?

Or in Bangladesh who don't know her, I doubt they have charges to bring, they have a massive job on their hands with multiple issues and they are not wealthy.

Ok cool send her there then what? She goes off and does whatever and any antipathy towards us is solidified by the fact we Found a way to get rid when she is British by any way it's looked at.

Anyone worried about the risk she poses should be shouting for her to come home and face the courts.

How is that not the safest option.

@PlanDeRaccordement

OP pointed out all the men who have been treated differently

But they haven’t been treated differently, OP was incorrect. If anything they have had less press and less sympathy.

Less press.

That's the point.

All those men. Who lets face it are way more likely to have been out doing awful stuff than young women.

The roles are clear.

Girls are for sex and babies and looking after men.
What Isis have done to girls and women is grotesque. Unpalatable.

The men are for decision making fighting etc.

All those men who are given that organisation will have been attacking. Men are fighters. No press. Back here. Loads. Prison etc.

But yeah the press goes to a girl who was 15 when she left which is really fucking young. Who will have been for marriage rape babies. 3 children die.

I mean maybe she still wants to kill us all maybe not.

She is British. She was a child. To have her as the face of terrorism. Essentially. Rather than the many men who have joined as adults. Been active in attacks.

It's bollocks.

And our looking for a loophole to fob her off onto someone else is appalling.

'I've clearly said that international law in this area lags behind practical reality and that the USA is one of the few countries repatriating. That clearly implies that repatriation is not common and that's made clear in the sources I've linked

You're the one claiming that you're stating what the law requires.
Of course you aren't but that clearly is no impediment to your self-belief'

Got any links about repatriation?

Specifically on Nations picking and choosing when their citizens are in a dangerous situation?

This is all so worrying. The international agreements etc are being just. Poster above says. Dismissed.

The point is that UK citizens are UK citizens. Irrespective of what they are like or doing.

Protocols apply across the board. They have to.

That's obvious surely?

Because for any nation to disregard their citizens needing to get out. Is a real problem.

You don't like journalists who report about things you don't like? They can stay there.

You don't like a certain ethnic minority? Gone to visit relatives overseas? No need to let them back.

There are people in a war zone who have citizenship in your country. But you don't like their ethnicity/ politics... Leave them there.

She's our problem. Didn't Shamima Begum go to a school where first one girl went to Syria on her own, and then Shamima and her two friends went to Syria a few months later? Presumably having heard all about how great it was to be part of Isis from girl 1?

What was going on in that British school? A cluster of girls hyping themselves and each other into hyper-religiosity? No-one intervened in time so failed not only them, but everyone who suffered due to their presence in Syria.

If the shoe was on the other foot, and we were a poor country ravaged by war, fomented by some outsiders from a richer country, I think we'd want that country to take the outsiders away and throw away the key.

I do think the UK should have done more to clear up its mess earlier, with targeted drone strikes so this wouldn't become an issue down the line. Unfortunately treason laws need a lot of work (e.g. some kind of life imprisonment for treason by virtue of joining ISIS) and it's virtually impossible to prosecute someone in these circumstances (most witnesses probably now untraceable or unwilling to give evidence openly), the state has to use whatever tools are left at their disposal. As they quite rightly say, these are not ideal.

If a 15 year old boy raped a girl, I would say he should be prosecuted. If a 15 year old girl joined a gang and murdered someone, again I say she should be prosecuted. People who try to claim that 15 year olds are allowed to do these things with no criminal consequence are on another planet.

oh and I think many of those defending her are letting their misogyny and racism show actually.

those tweets comparing her to that fabulous young tennis player and claiming that the colour of their skin was why the British public felt differently about them??? and the fact that people seem to think teenage girls are literally so useless that they should be allowed to be terrorists because they can't get their head around it??

She knew what she was joining and what she would be doing, the only reason she's in the news is because ISIS failed and she's not enjoying poverty.

@Flowers500

If a 15 year old boy raped a girl, I would say he should be prosecuted. If a 15 year old girl joined a gang and murdered someone, again I say she should be prosecuted. People who try to claim that 15 year olds are allowed to do these things with no criminal consequence are on another planet.

Sorry not following.

She's British and we should bring her home and prosecute her.

It's up to the police, and the various services who were in that region to provide evidence and the usual legal process follows.

I cannot see why anyone has an issue with that.

Picking and choosing how individual Britons get treated depending on political/ media reasons is a total disaster. And a really dodgy precedent.

The point of laws including international is that everyone abides by them.

Starting to look for loopholes. In this case dump one of our citizens. A Brit by birth schooling etc on a country that has zero to do with it. Creates a harmful precedent.

She is our problem and we can and should deal with her.

To do anything else is just outrageous tbh.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

She's our problem. Didn't Shamima Begum go to a school where first one girl went to Syria on her own, and then Shamima and her two friends went to Syria a few months later? Presumably having heard all about how great it was to be part of Isis from girl 1?

What was going on in that British school? A cluster of girls hyping themselves and each other into hyper-religiosity? No-one intervened in time so failed not only them, but everyone who suffered due to their presence in Syria.

If the shoe was on the other foot, and we were a poor country ravaged by war, fomented by some outsiders from a richer country, I think we'd want that country to take the outsiders away and throw away the key.

Totally agree.

How were her and her friends radicalised? People they met (older men). The internet?

Why were they susceptible?

Why didn't anyone notice their frankly massive issues?

What life did they have that they fucked off on a massive journey on their own like this? Why were they vulnerable to this grooming?

Who paid for the tickets and arranged the flights? Made sure they had passports and could get to the airport?

Why did our airport checks not raise any flags?

I mean on and on.

I suppose the questions about what WE did wrong here are difficult.

It's easier to believe she somehow was happy at home school etc but was rotten at heart. Somehow organised all the transfers etc by herself. And was super keen to experience the way Isis treat women.

Tweets?

Eh?

Let's stick to this conversation.

Where is the info/ reports on efforts to find-

How a girl born and raised here was radicalised
Who she was in touch with and who booked the flights etc
Why the airport didn't raise any flags

Basic basic questions.

To quote Oscar Wilde:

"To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

So the school had one female pupil running off to be an ISIS bride in one incident. Then they had another incident, in which they lost three.

I believe the school did have concerns at one point, so they sent a letter home saying they were concerned one of the girls was being radicalised. With her in her bag.. Strangely enough, that letter never made it to her parents and/or guardian because she didn't hand it over to them.

Well, obviously she didn't! You'd take more care with sending home an incriminating school report.

A letter home?

Wtf. What if it was the parents? Even if not what do they expect the parents to do with a letter like that?

Why weren't they given support in school?

In all of this the focus has been shine on this individual. Out of all the grown men etc. She has been offered by govt and picked up by media as some kind of face of evil.

And questions like.
How did this happen
What was going on at the school that they had according to PP 4. FOUR. Girls somehow get radicalised and persuaded. And then someone (who?) organised to get them to Syria. Schoolgirls off to a group that operates markets for women to be bought and sold as sex slaves. That sees women as nothing.

Where are the answers to how this all happened?

I mean begum and the other girls didn't do it all by themselves.

Whoever did the grooming and organised it all. Are they still active?

How on earth did our airports not raise any flags?

It's easy to accept her as the face of evil and that's that.

But that fails totally to track down the people who successfully persuaded those girls to head off age 15 into such a dangerous situation.

I can't understand why all this is happening with her at all tbh.

It's easy? Easier than asking more difficult questions?

And tbh those who believe that 15yo girls are fully mature and know exactly what they're doing and can act independently to do what these girls did.

Then that is a pretty big deal.

Age of consent/ sexual exploitation/ grooming etc. They are old enough and mature enough etc to know what they're doing.

That attitude towards 15 yo girls is more aligned with a variety of fundamentalist religious groups than with than the values the UK holds in law etc.

The point is that UK citizens are UK citizens. Irrespective of what they are like or doing

The point is that is not a fact legally in UK law. Many countries reserve the right in extreme cases to remove citizenship. The UK has done it for other Isis supporters as has Denmark, Australia and Germany.

She is not being treated differently from other Isis supporters- except perhaps by the efforts to drum up sympathy.

Hang on a minute.

The thing about Shamima and the other girls (who died in Syria, according to Shamima) is we know her name because she's a girl.

There were public appeals to try and get the girls' to get in contact and persuade them to change their minds before they reached Syria. If they had been 15 year old boys, travelling off to fight directly, I suspect their families would have been too scared of public repercussions to go public.

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/25/education-secretary-nicky-morgan-syria-bethnal-green-academy

However, the efforts failed. Instead of stopping her reaching ISIS, the efforts made her the female face of ISIS. In the years since, that has meant that the press and public have spent more time talking about her legal fate more than they have the nameless young men from the UK who also travelled to Syria. It also means that public Tough-on-Crime political posturing about keeping Shamima Begum out of the country provides better-value PR than any public announcement that we have removed the citizenship of an anonymous man from Dagenham would do.

No disrespect to Dagenham intended. I just needed an area name in a hurry.

I

People keep talking about prosecution but prosecute her for what? We have proof she used someone's else's passport (or was that her friend?) Proof she joined a terrorist organisation but thats really it everything else is rumours

This book sounds interesting: www.heraldscotland.com/news/17951717.glaswegian-isis-bride-aqsa-mahmood-classic-example-cult-grooming/

@PlanDeRaccordement

Nora Camali was tried and found guilty by Syrian authorities of crimes committed in Syria. Not the same situation as Shemima Begum, who has not been formally accused of anything by the Syrian authorities. Source?

www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5444409,00.html

@PlanDeRaccordement

The idea that she could suddenly be told that she is not British any more because of her father's birthplace is abhorrent.

But that’s not what would happen. To lose citizenship she’d have to commit a serious crime equivalent to high treason. Read U.K. law, they can’t just take her citizenship over most crimes, not even murder.

So what crime has SB been convicted of? I hadn't realised that she had already been put on trial and found guilty.

Or are we working on the basis of guilty until proven otherwise?

Either way, it's irrelevant in my view. Even if she has been convicted of a serious crime, I still do not believe that she should be treated differently from other British citizens simply because of where her parents were born. She is a British citizen, who had never laid claim to any other nationality, so she should face the same consequences as any other British citizen would. Anything else is patently discriminatory and I am astonished that this isn't obvious to everyone. Or perhaps people are just being deliberately obtuse because it suits them.

@KimikosNightmare

The idea that she could suddenly be told that she is not British any more because of her father's birthplace is abhorrent

Oh don't be so dramatic. She would have to do something pretty abhorrent for this to happen. This is not by any means unique to the UK.

Well, yes, maybe she would have to do something pretty dramatic, but would she need to be tried and convicted of a crime before her citizenship was removed? Or would the normal presumption of innocent till proven guilty not apply?

And even if she did do something awful, or was at least believed to have done something awful, I am at a loss to understand why my daughter or others like her should potentially face a harsher punishment than other British citizens simply because of her father's birthplace. If you believe that this is fair, then the only logical conclusion is that you believe that children born in the UK with at least one immigrant parent are somehow less British than their counterparts with two British-born parents. In other words, a second class citizen with less right to their British nationality than others.

For me, this is not about what happens to SB, it's about equality and the status of British children who are born and raised here with immigrant parents. If we allow SB's citizenship to be stripped despite the fact that she had never laid claim to any other citizenship, it's a slippery slope in my view and it frightens me.