Shamima begum allowed to return to UK

[mummabear1967]

Surely I’ve got this wrong? She’s actually allowed back to the UK after joining a terrorist group abroad?

Anyone just a tiny bit worried about what might happen if she does return?

From yesterday’s article in the Guardian on this:

The makeshift desert prisons holding British nationals are breaking at the seams. In recent months nearly 800 foreign prisoners are reported to have escaped. Against this backdrop Kurdish authorities have pleaded with Britain and other countries to take back their prisoners. Should the camps collapse, there is every chance the UK will completely lose track of British prisoners, eliminating any hope of monitoring their movements, or indeed of securing justice for any crimes they may have committed.

@Evelefteden she was a child when she left.

She is a young woman now but was hardly a woman when she went off at 15.

Incidentally, you're more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than a terrorist in the UK.

If you're genuinely worried about public safety, I suggest you channel your energy into stripping drunk drivers of their nationality.

I'm not saying she is blameless or deserving of any special treatment - just asking you to examine why she is more objectionable to you than numerous individuals who have been convicted of far worse crimes and retain their nationality.

She is not a child. She is a woman. Yes. I want her brought back but the 'child' refrain is extremely annoying.

@Evelefteden

What crime would you incarcerate her for life for? The penalty for supporting a proscribed organisation is a maximum of ten years. I imagine there’d be consideration of extenuating circumstances

People have committed more heinous crimes and not received nearly as much hatred

It’s still fresh in every one’s memory that Sudesh Amman was sentenced to three years for terrorism activity, he was realised after only doing half his sentence. He was already under surveillance and had a tag on. He attacked people with a knife in a London high street leaving one person fighting for their life. He was also found with a gun in his apartment.

People still remember Usman Khan being released on licence and going on to London Bridge and stabbing five people and two were killed.

This women might not go on a murderous killing spree, but if she is let out - and there is a very good chance she will be - no one on here can give a guarantee that she would not go back in to playing an active role with in the organisation. The ‘she is only a child’ I’d utter bull shit. She is a 20 year old women who has been a party to horrors that we could possibly never imagined. She will be irreversibly damaged. She will be seen as a hero figure. People are absolutely bonkers if you think this women could slip back in society and start behaving like a normal human being again.

You’re describing the crimes of others. That’s not how our justice system works.

She will indeed have been subject to unimaginable horrors as a child and that is why she deserves some degree of compassion, in common with all abused children. Marrying a girl of fifteen is abuse.

Incidentally, you're more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than a terrorist in the UK. Well that's alright then.

just asking you to examine why she is more objectionable to you than numerous individuals who have been convicted of far worse crimes and retain their nationality. She's not been convicted of anything. We don't know what she's done in addition to joining ISIS and we're unlikely to find out.

Children are deemed capable (aged considerably than 15) to make life changing decisions re gender and puberty blocking. A fifteen year old is capable of making decisions that have repercussions and must face the consequences. It is scandalous that she is being allowed back. She can stay where she is, give video evidence in her appeal, or go to Bangladesh where she had citizenship. They are not dope enough to fall for it and don't want her /well done them!

Elsewhere on here someone's 15 year old daughter is ph and everyone is saying it is her decision whether or not to have the baby /her decision only, despite it have ramifications on numerous other people. Can't have it both ways.

Wow Evel I didn't know all that. That makes it even more shocking and bigger failure of the systems that are meant to support and protect vulnerable young people.

I’ve completely U-turned on this since her situation first came to light.

Unpalatable though it is, if we expect our legal system to function, every British citizen must be afforded the same right of representation and a fair trial in a British court, however heinous the crimes they are accused of.

Exporting our problems elsewhere just isn’t right.

I’ll end up sounding like I’m condoning her actions- which I don’t.

A termination is about the girls decision to fully understand the risks and benefits to be able to give informed consent. Those risks are well known and there is a legal requirement that the doctor should be trying to persuade her to involve her parents. That doesn’t happen but is a requirement for full consent.

Shamima had no adult assessing her understanding and couldn’t possibly have known the risks. She was unable to make an informed decision. She certainly couldn’t consent to marriage.

I don’t understand the degree of animosity towards an abused young girl unless it’s racism. Venables and Rogers served about 8 years for murdering Jamie Bulger and Venables received £29, 000 compensation for an unfair trial.

Shamima has no convictions. There is no suggestion she has committed violent crimes. Her worst crime is likely to be supporting a proscribed organisation. Yet people suggest hanging and lifelong incarceration? Why are we not suggesting the Rotherham victims be charged with prostitution? Because that would be an abhorrent notion but yet we want to remove all rights from a young girl who was abused.

Feels like Islamophobia and that it’s not the crime, it’s the colour.

I am staggered by these replies.. because this is a parenting forum above all else. Where a huge majority are parents, grandparents , step parents etc.. are you ALL telling me that TEENAGERS , all , without exception NEVER make mistakes ? Never, make unreasoned choices without thinking through the consequences.. ? Have never gotten in with a bad lot and be influenced by them ... ?

If YOUR teenager made an awful terrible mistake - would you want them to answer for their consequences in the country of their birth, the country of their upbringing.. and as things stand, the ONLY country that they have e ever been a citizen of ?

Or would you prefer we dispense with justice and make your child stateless - and instead try them in the court of public opinion ? With its unreasoned and unreasonable consequences... not unlike the 'justice' executed in the so called 'Caliphate' ..

Or does it have something to do with her being brown and dressed in a chador that influences this response .

Well said, disorganisedsecretsquirrel.

I'd hate to be judged now on what I thought and did at 15.

@Evelefteden she was a child when she left

No she wasn’t she was an adolescent. Calling her a child is resolving her of all her wrong doings. She wasn’t 8,9,10,11,12

She was nearly 16. I was responsible for a new born baby at just turned 16 and had my own flat. She knew what she was getting in to.

I’m not sure where the idea she was a straight A student has come from. What is the evidence for that?
I do think she should be given some leniency for the fact she left at such a young age. However what I struggle with is her lack of condemnation for the regime and the horrors it perpetrated. She was supporting, aiding and abetting terrorists committing atrocities . She approves of those atrocities. There is no evidence her mindset has changed. Her husband and children are dead and so most probably are her friends. She is out of other options.

I'd hate to be judged now on what I thought and did at 15

Are you joking?

She didn’t get pissed on a park. She joined a terrorist organisation that was known for strapping bombs to women and children. She even admits she was attracted by the violent videos - y’know the ones where people are getting beheaded or set on fire in a cage ...

It’s so fucking worrying that some people minimise what this women has actually been a participant off.

@Viviennemary

Yes in the case where a person plots against the state it's different from a normal crime. She should not have been given legal aid IMHO.

I find this particularly baffling. Why, in the modern age, should plots against the state or anti-state feelings be thought of as worse than plots against individuals or groups within a state?

It’s so fucking worrying that some people minimise what this women has actually been a participant off.

It's more worrying that some people either don't understand or don't value the fundamental legal principles on which our democratic society is based. It worries me that people like that actually get to vote.

Out of interest, these things you say she has been a participant of, can you point me to what she has actually been convicted of in a court of law? Do you even get why that might be of importance?

She can stay where she is, give video evidence in her appeal, or go to Bangladesh where she had citizenship.

Or she can come home and make her case. She is not and has never been a Bangladeshi citizen. She is a British girl from England.

Just remember she joined a terrorist group before you defend her. A terrorist group. A group that would kill anyone they set their eyes on for the hell of it.

She was 15. Not 5. 15. As a PP has said, she justified the Manchester bombings. That says it all.

Serial killers personally kill multiple times, as adults - we don't strip them of their nationality.

I'd like to know why people think that this case is more heinous?

Before I'm accused of minimising, I think she should be tried and convicted if proven (which, by the way, is how our criminal justice system works).

Justifying the Manchester bombings in unpalatable but not a criminal offence.