Shamima Begum Bid for Citizenship Rejected

[SlightlyJaded]

Not sure how I feel about this. I've recently listened to the (excellent) BBC Sounds podcast (season two of 'I'm not a Monster ) and there are a number of interviews with her which swayed me in different directions when listening.

I had originally agreed with the ruling to strip her - going along with the rhetoric that, yes she was fifteen, but she knew exactly what she was signing up for, and had seemed completely unrepentant and pro-Isis in her interviews.

Now, following the podcast, I'm not so sure. There are certainly times where she sounds unrepentant. But there are times when she explains that she could not - on many occasions - speak out against ISIS for fear of being killed. And there are times when she talks about being an easy person to 'make an example of' and it sounds quite convincing.

She was fifteen. Shy and ripe for exploitation.

She has lost three children.

Her friends are dead.

But... but... she actively went to a Caliphate and bought into the ideology. She married (willingly) a very active ISIS member and chose to stay even when things started to fall apart.

I think it all comes down to how much 'choice' she actually had once she arrived and how much she was indoctrinated into going in the first place. It's a tricky one and I'm torn.

Anyone else have a more clear view?

Why would she be a threat to Bangladesh or Syria though? Those people's target is the west. She was old enough to know better.
Her family could rescue you her to Bangladesh and settle there since the UK is so awful!

They government has removed citizenship from over 200 people for similar reasons, so it isn’t unique to Shamima but she’s has had an extended media interest. The government revoked citizenship from white people in these circumstances - jihadi jack for example. I don’t think he’s ever returned to the UK once he arrived Syria.

I really don't understand the free will and old enough to know thing. We find the whole joining ISIS thing abhorrent yes. But we don't even think that 15 year olds are old enough to consent to having sex, let alone join ISIS through being enticed by a man online and then helped to travel there. There is a crime, a huge one. But I think the law needs to be followed and her to be given a trial and imprisonment. Not leave her stateless and abandoned. There are juvenile murderers who are allowed back into society. From what we know she hasn't killed anyone. From an objective point of view, this makes no sense.

@EasternEcho it’s interesting, I did have a quick search online to see if she’s committed any crime and I actually found an iplayer documentary on her story. She was groomed by a female friend, who was also groomed. She explains she felt she never fit into the UK and felt oppressed by being Bengali/muslim and being “different”. She basically found somewhere to fit in with religion and her friend at school who eventually became extremist and left to ISIS alone. When that friend was in Syria, she continued to contact Shamina and got her to fly over.

in terms of the law, joining isis is enough grounds for them to revoke her citizenship. At the time that decision was made, she wasn’t stateless as she could have sought Bangladesh citizenship. She can no longer do that now, but all the recent court action is to appeal the UK government’s decision in 2019 when she had an alternative, not her status as of 2024.

@Imagebrand From what I can see, Bangladesh has been clear that Shamima is not eligible for citizenship. So that seems to have been a misaprehension on UK's part.

Yes, joining ISIS can be grounds for revoking citizenship, but this is where her age of leaving comes in. She is still a child when she was convinced this was a good idea.

It's my opinion, but I think making her pay like this is too much for a crime committed at 15, where we hold every other child of that age for not having the ability to fully comprehend the consequences of their actions or have the ability to regulate their behavior in the same way as adults, not to mention a greater possibility of rehabilitation. None of these are being taken into account for her.

That's my feelings on it.

@Imagebrand Regarding how she got to Syria, it did come out later that a Canadian spy facilitated her trip to Syria. I seriously doubt a 15 year old could have figured out such a dangerous trip through Turkey and over the border by herself.
Canada spy smuggled UK’s Shamima Begum into Syria: New book | ISIL/ISIS News | Al Jazeera

Criminal responsibility age in the uk is from 10. Her crime is against the entire country.
Arguably all criminals are traumatised, brainwashed or suffering MH issues at some point. Where do we draw the line?

Circumstances of her being only 15 and groomed are not good enough reasons to bring her back. Taxpayers are bled enough as is and with terrorists, you can never trust them again to be truly rehabilitated. She betrayed the country and bringing her back will cost too much and anger people. We don't have the death panalty for treason so she should be grateful all she got was exile.

I think Shamina’s case is interesting as i wonder if statistically it may not have been likely that she survived the last decade? Being married into a terrorist organisation at such a young age, living in close proximity to bombings, general bloodthirst, gun fire, being left to fend for herself as a teen in a foreign area, all the mental turmoil/personal struggles such as death of children, abusive marriage etc. it seems like the friends she travelled in with have passed away. She has seemingly survived against all odds?

@Thorntone I know right!

Imo, the only thing that matters is that she is British. She was groomed/planned to leave in Britain. She joined ISIS while she was a British citizen. Any crime she committed was committed while she was British.

British border control allowed her to leave the country as an unsupervised minor without her parent's permission.

She has fuck all to do with Syria or Bangladesh. She is our problem. If she needs to be locked up we need to take responsibility for that. If she needs psychological help, we need to take responsibility. If she is a security risk we need to take the responsibility to monitor her.

We don't have the right to push the practical and financial burden of her onto other countries.

I read somewhere online that there’s hundreds of people stuck in Syria detention camps like the one shamima is in. I’m not sure if she’s serving some form of prison sentence there? So on one hand, it could be Syria’s justice system but on the other hand, how will an impoverished country like Syria sustain the resources to feed and shelter these people long term?

We all did silly things yes we absolutely did but we didn't join a fucking terrorist group ffs!
How do you know she was easily led?
And as for immature I doubt it; she managed the trip to turkey & on to Syria and obtained the funds and executed those plans easily enough.
15 year olds are obviously capable of knowing right from wrong and the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10 (besides she's no longer 15 and is probably a million times more radicalised now) why should the whole of the UK's public be put at risk for 1 persons risks of staying in Syria? No thanks next joke! She's managed to survive out there till now unlike all her kids & the other 2 she left with (bit suspicious in itself) I think she'll manage just fine and even if she doesn't who cares? Did she care while she committing murders? Fucking doubt it 🙄

Thank goodness and hopefully the news will stop publishing anything about her.

Absolutely.

She is a British problem and shouldn't be dumped on another country. It's disgraceful.

British border control allowed her to leave the country as an unsupervised minor without her parent's permission.

Eh? Minors travel unsupervised all of the time. I did as a child and my brother's children do so now.

Begum would have had to pass through passport control at the airport. Passport control don't check to see if someone has a parent's permission to travel - they check to see if the passport is in order. (The clue is in the name.)

Even if passport control did carry out this type of function, it would be possible for the individual to lie and say that they did have permission. Begum was sly enough to sell her sister's jewellery and to arrange to be transported from Turkey to Syria, so she would have been sly enough to lie about parental permission.

Question are asked - if there is any doubt - when a person enters country, not when they leave it.

There are thousands just in Al-Hol and Al-Roj. The UN and US are desperate to get them repatriated because the whole thing is a huge security risk and the conditions are dire. Not least because some of the women are still attempting to run active terrorist cells from inside and murdering those that are seen to betray ISIS are not uncommon.

I don’t understand the legal ruling. I have 15 year old and remember being one too. I find it shocking that we’re refusing to take her back. She’s British and our responsibility imo. We allowed a child to be radicalised and surely we are ultimately responsible for cleaning up our own mess. I believe that far more dangerous individuals walk amongst us.

Thousands? Either they’ll all die out or they will just become another terrorist organisation fuelled by their mistreatment. Definitely a risky problem emerging for the future.

On a side note, I don’t even know how countries in that part of the world will even begin to recover from the constant war. Crisis doesn’t even cover it.

You haven't understood what the case was about, then.

SIAC's finding was NOT about the decision but about the legality of the decision. Begum can thank (not that she will, of course) the taxpayer for picking up the bill for the case that has now reached £5,000,000 and will be higher with the next appeal.

@FuzzyManul how many times can she appeal this?

Al-Hol had a population of 48,000 women and children last year. Al-roj is much much smaller but probably still has a couple of thousand.

Ok then, insert the words ‘Government’s ongoing position, as supported by the…’ immediately before ‘legal ruling’ and my initial reply to the OP still reflects how I feel about the case.

I think there is about 40,000 people in detention camps in Syria. It’s not a prison sentence- isis fighters were put in prison. These are family members linked to the fighters . A US backed Kurdish army secure the camps . The US were calling for repatriations. It’s obviously an unstable situation. I don’t know who feeds them - unicef and other charities are operating in the camps.

Meh.

She’s fine in Syria. Fed, housed, etc.

(By a people she tried to kill, if that’s not inconvenient to point out.)

In humanitarian terms, SB’s no priority. To suggest she has a claim in the current world of war would be obscene.

She was 15, she came from a marginalised community, she was groomed. If she was a middle clsss white girl from Surrey she would be back at home and being supported by every available agency. She is was a child. And her country failed her.