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?

I've got no more sympathy for her than the children who killed James Bulger if I'm honest.

Has she actually got Bangladeshi citizenship? I thought it was an option she could have and that she is now stateless - unless she can claim her husband's nationality (Danish?)? I think her position is more like mine. I could have Irish citizenship but I do not (dual citizenship can be a handicap as neither country really feels responsible for you if it doesn't suit them). I do not want her back. She was happy to watch people being beheaded and burned alive and see Yazidi girls sold into sex slavery. If money is being spent on her it would be better spent on rehabilitating the surviving Yazidi girls; some committed suicide because they could not bear any more to be raped every day - I have a bloody sight more sympathy for them and their families (in bucketloads) than for Shamima Begum.

I think she is eligible to claim citizenship of another country but has chosen not to as she wants to come to the UK. How is she even eligible for legal aid if she is no longer a UK citizen. What a farce.

I thought her claim to Bangladeshi citizenship was tenuous and they have said they would refuse it. She was born and raised and educated here, she is British.

They have just discussed this on question time. The panelmwas equally divided I think. One person gave the most sensible answer. A country has a duty to keep its citizens safe and seems there is a lot of information we arent told about saying she is a threat. Our safety comes before her 'rights'.

I find it perplexing and actually quite racist to suggest she takes Bangladeshi citizenship.

It's basically saying we don't want to deal with her even though she was a British citizen and expect Bangladesh to suddenly have to take responsibility for her.

Why should Bangladesh have to deal with her because we don't want to?

The undercurrent is that oh, it doesn't really matter does it... afteral it's only a developing country...oh and even though she was a British citizen, because she's not white, she wasn't a "proper" British person.

It's not perplexing. It's because she's of Bangladeshi origin.

I can't get too worked up about her British citizenship tbh (which technically she no longer has) or about 'burdening Bangladesh with our problems'. We deal with a pretty significant number of Bangladeshi refugees.

It's not perplexing. It's because she's of Bangladeshi origin

Plenty of people are second generation immigrants...but it's just more obvious when you're not white. Hence why I said it's racist.

@PeanutButterSmoothie Jesus Christ. What a horrible attitude.

but she isn't of Bangladeshi origin
she's of British origin
why on earth should Bangladesh deal with her? educated here
and it could be argued failed by this country who should have safeguarded her

of course its racist
imagine a white blonde blue eyed 15 year old managing to leave the country and gets smuggled into a warzone and 'married' to (=raped by) a terrorist

Not hard to imagine. The Al Kansaa Brigade was led by a white English woman. ' The British were the cruellest ' according to one woman who was herself one of the dress code enforcers.

Women who couldn't recite Koranic verses were beaten. They were just illiterate peasant girls who never had Shamima's advantages in this life.

so an adult then?
and where is she now?

Samantha Lewthwaite was somewhere between 15 and 17 when she converted. Married no older than 20. Now wanted by the authorities in several countries, and probably in hiding in Somalia.

AFAIK her only birth nationality is British, so we may end up with her back here.

Birth entitlement (by descent, to use British terms for the concept) often extinguishes after a generation or two, so those born to immigrants are more likely to have that sort of remaining eligibility. But it's based on nationality not race, and it's not so long since the proscribed terrorists were white (Bader-Meinhof, PIRA) and who knows where the next threat will come from

How are we ensuring “our safety” by having her remain in a refugee camp in god knows where? She could be recruited and do more terrible things.

The only place for her, if it’s our safety that we’re concerned about, is in a UK prison after a fair trial.

She justified the Manchester bombing - all those youngsters in terror and pain;all those parents and aunties, all those wee cousins who have to live with the memory of that night- Begum thought that was all fine.. She clearly doesn't regard herself as British as she couldn't even feel a pinch of sympathy for British children. We don't need people her.

The only place for her, if it’s our safety that we’re concerned about, is in a UK prison after a fair trial.

Yes, this.

This stance, expressed by a lot of posters on here, is obviously not 'sympathising', just being pragmatic. People must be being deliberately obtuse.

No one is trying to justify what she believed and the ideology she followed. Obviously what she did was wrong.

Send her to Rwanda? 🤔

No real time for Begum. But there is a gushing article in today's Guardian about women serving in the US army in Iraq.

No mention of female US soldiers who tortured prisoners in Afghanistan , Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. They must be as damaged / dangerous as Shamima?

As indeed must their male equivalents.

My gut feeling is ‚good riddance‘.

Rationally, however, it must be said that she was underage (and probably groomed). Also, a state shouldn’t be able to rid itself from a citizen so easily.
And to top it off, ISIS was used (ultimately unsuccessfully) as a tool to topple Assad by the same West who condemns her now. In my book it was no coincidence that ISIS could freely recruit Western Youth via social media for so long. (If memory serves me right, when I was kicked off Twitter for mentioning that women don‘t have penises, ISIS Accounts were still quite active, some ISIS bride (Green Bird of soandso) painting a beautiful picture of her life in Raqqa. Says it all, really.)

The hypocrisy is, frankly, off the charts.

Also, a state shouldn’t be able to rid itself from a citizen so easily.

I think treason is the right bar, and she met that standard.

PorcelinaV, If that were the measure then every Western Intelligence officer who helped funnel weapons to ISIS fighters would be stateless, too.

Treason is actually a highly subjective measure. It is actually trotted out every time a government gets embarrassed by some whistleblower by exposing some illegal behaviour.
Also, giving a state the power to strip a citizen of their citizenship without even a day in court is a halllmark of a tyranny.