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?

Eh? The white middle class terrorists were booted out pretty fast.

I think that whether she was groomed or not should be a separate question to the issue of citizenship. She was born in Britain so she is British and that should be the end of that question.

I think it is deeply sinister for a government to remove citizenship from anyone actually born here. It’s particularly awful in her case where it was done on the presumption of her being entitled to citizenship because her parents were born elsewhere. Citizenship she doesn’t actually hold from a country she has never lived in.

To say to second generation immigrants that you can have your citizenship removed basically says “we don’t really view you as British.”

She can, theoretically, appeal as far as the Supreme Court. How many steps that is between where is now and that I don't know.

Sorry I can't be more helpful!

I dont think people care about her skin colour!
She chose to fight with terrorists.

Deterrent if more criminals could be left stateless.

I am appalled that her citizenship was stripped.

With regards to her guilt... she was 15 and therefore below the age of consent. Yes, she made a decision to go, but it seems that she was groomed online and trafficked. Either way, if she is suspected of specific offenses, she should be tried for these in a British Court and serve her sentence in a British jail. If the intelligence services consider her to be a security risk, she should be monitored accordingly.

She was born, raised and educated in the UK and she was a British citizen from birth. She never had a Bangladeshi passport and she had never even been to Bangladesh. It is absurd to suggest that she should be anything other than our problem.

My dd has one foreign parent, but she was born in the UK and has only ever lived here. She is every bit as British as I am, so I can't for the life of me understand why she should somehow be classed as a second class citizen with fewer rights than the rest of us. It's deeply offensive.

Exactly.

Clearly, a lot of people view my dd as being not properly British because she has one foreign parent. I find that deeply disturbing.

And no, of course my dd isn't actually going to have her citizenship stripped because she isn't about to run away and join isis or commit some kind of heinous crime, but that isn't the point. It's the message that this judgement sends to every second generation immigrant in this country about their status being different from that of people with two white British parents.

The treatment meted out to Shamima Begum was different from the treatment that would have been meted out to a white British girl who had done the same thing, simply because of her ethnicity. I am shocked that so many people think this is just fine.

It’s not about whether she did something wrong. It’s not about whether she knew she was doing something wrong.

She is a British citizen and as much as I despise her as a person, it’s is ridiculous to just strip someone of their citizenship. She should be extradited back to her country (U.K.) and face justice for her crimes. The crime for acts of terrorism is imprisonment.

The problem is that part of the grooming focused specifically on teaching certain people to believe that the “horrors” were propaganda from the West and weren’t true. A large amount of those groomed were shown horrific videos of children hurt and dying and were convinced that the West did this (which in part they did). They often played on clever tropes as well, shown through blogs like the Bird of Jannah which even included edited pictures of Disney characters and their love interests, romanticising ISIS beliefs. They focused hugely on social media and had people specifically posting what life was ‘really like’ (paradise) in the Islamic State, even though, of course, in reality it wasn’t. The algorithm contributed to that by showing multiple accounts and posts confirming this wonderful paradise. Very few young people who joined (and let’s remember it wasn’t just young people, but educated adults as well) had any understanding of the damage they were actually causing or the reality of what awaited them. They were brainwashed from the moment they were targeted throughout their experience and continue to be subjected to ISIS’ interpretation of the law by others in camps.

I think it’s a big mistake not bringing back those who went. The very formation of ISIS in some ways demonstrated how these mistakes tend to play out. It’s also a mistake not to look very closely at why people went, it’s easy to think they’re ‘bad people’, but it’s so much more complex than that. It was not easy to ‘leave’ ISIS when you got there and saw the reality. Neither was it particularly possible to prevent death and harm. Until removed from the camps, the women can be at serious risks when talking about ISIS negatively, so it’s not as simple as helping governments with information as such.

Her life in the UK would be safer and offer an opportunity to relearn Islam (if that’s what she desired) away from such a warped interpretation. I can’t answer on the legalities, but it won’t be cut and dry. Would it be merciful? In some ways. However, she would absolutely be prosecuted when here and I think all the women in the camps are highly aware of that. However, in my opinion, it would be morally right. Is it really Justice removing citizenship and leaving someone in a camp? It’s partially a political gesture.

As far as I’m aware, the UK is generally behind Europe in repatriating ISIS members, including children - and I just can’t see that as a positive thing.

I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her. I'd rather she stayed where she is. One person's rights should not trump everyone else's safety.

I think regardless of her crime and the fact of her despicable actions- she IS British. Her expulsion and our refusal to allow her return is nothing more or less than institutional racism. If I, a grown white Welsh woman, joined a terrorist movement and committed crimes of atrocity in a foreign country- let's be honest, I'd be allowed back into the UK without question and would hopefully face trial for my crimes upon my return.

Exactly.

It’s tricky. I think we need to remember that there are things that happened that the public are not privy to. There is much more of a reason than we know that she was stripped of her citizenship by the Home Secretary but I don mt think it would have been done unless there was just cause.

There isn’t a white British woman to use as a comparator - the few white women who left for Isis died eg sally jones, samantha lewthwaite

jack letts is a white male who is a couple of years older than shamima and had his citizenship revoked

plus an Asian British woman, Tareena Shakil, was allowed back to the UK and jailed on arrival

See, I don't see it like that at all.

I agree that there may be things that we don't know about. However, nothing can change the fact that she was British from birth so stripping her citizenship is not a valid response.

She might have committed some heinous crimes for all I know, but I don't think this is about what she did or didn't do. Whatever her crimes might be, she should face justice. If she is a risk to the public, then steps should be taken to ensure that she is kept under surveillance etc. I have no issue with her facing the full force of the law.

What I do have issue with is the idea that she - as a British citizen from birth, raised and educated in the UK - should be treated differently from any other British citizens simply because she has a foreign parent.

If I did what Shamima Begum has done, I wouldn't face losing my British nationality. If my daughter did the same thing, then the state could suddenly decide that she wasn't British any more. So I can only conclude from that that the state doesn't actually regard my child as an equal citizen with equal rights. She is a British citizen, as per her passport, but apparently a kind of second class citizen without quite the same rights as the rest of us.

I don't think that's right, and so I don't think that there can be a just cause for removing the citizenship that she has held from birth if we wouldn't do the same thing to any other British citizen who did what she did.

It doesn't matter if we don't have a white woman for the sake of comparison. We know that they would not revoke citizenship for individuals where there is no other potential citizenship that they can claim.

Jack Letts had his British citizenship revoked because he had a Canadian father. If both of his parents had been British, that wouldn't have been an option. If he had spent most of his life in Canada, then perhaps it might have been reasonable to revoke his British citizenship, but like Shamima, he was born, raised and educated in the UK. It was utterly wrong of us to revoke his citizenship and make him Canada's problem. He was our responsibility, and abhorrent as his crimes were, we shouldn't have turned away from that responsibility.

I absolutely understand the various arguments here, and I agree that it’s a complicated and emotive issue

I think the aspect that troubles me the most is the idea that someone could lose citizenship even if they are born in Britain and are raised in Britain, if they have parents from another country

to me, that creates a hierarchy of “Britishness” that if you really interrogate it is inherently racist. I can’t accept that personally .

and that’s ignoring all of the arguments around her grooming/exploitation etc

@Littlepinkstarsbyradish your post reminds me of the windrush scandal

But I do think in Shamima’s circumstances, the right decision was made. Shamima could have tried to explore Bangladesh citizenship in 2019, because if they rejected her application for citizenship it would have placed her in a stronger position to appeal against the UK government’s decision.

The government has been successful thus far due to technicalities in the law, I suppose but unless the law is changed, it will always be a risk for people who have dual heritage. For what it’s worth, other countries have revoked citizenship for people suspected of terrorism. It might be that collectively there needs to be a united approach on how to handle this pool of people to prevent a militia growing in those detention camps in Syria as that could essentially be another ISIS developing in slow motion

Criminal age can be 10, but children are very obviously treated differently under the justice system than adults. There is a clear demarkation point between being tried as a child and tried as an adult. The terms grooming and mitigating circumstances are there in the justice system for a reason when it comes to children and people in vulnerable positions.

As for angering people and rehabilitation, countless criminals have been released into the public only to reoffend and even murder. Begum has never been tried to find out what her crimes and whether she even functioned as anything other than a baby making machine, let alone kill anyone.

Your last sentence about she should be thankful she has not been put to death. So you are advocating for child offenders to be put to death? That's disturbing. Baying for blood and vengeance does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of violence.

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.)

One of them used her sister's passport. The met police knew what they were planning, they should have notified the airports. They should have been stopped before they left the country.

To understand the grooming can I suggest a film? Profile is based on a true story of a journalist portraying herself as a Muslim convert to investigate an ISIS recruiter.

It doesn't get great reviews as a film but it does show how grooming happens.

The book ‘Guest house for young widows: Among the Women of Isis’ is also a helpful read.

There’s a lot out there if people want to learn about ISIS propaganda and grooming (and also the formation) including research studies, documentaries (there’s one on NOW atm and some on Prime) and books. I think there are many reasons people joined ISIS, but for a large number of younger women there was a feeling of displacement in society and often their family which left them vulnerable to propaganda about a perfect society where they could help other Muslims. However, once they were in ISIS territory, they were living in fear. They had little to no internet access and what they had was monitored as far as possible. The media likes to show shots of them in internet cafes, but as far as im aware, these were patrolled.

Women who arrived went straight into a guest house (often poor conditions) and their only way out was to marry. Once married, they were under not only ISIS control but their husband’s control. They had to take on a traditional women’s role. If their husband died, they often went back to this guest house and were made to marry again. They had little access to health care for themselves or their children. They were forced to wear more and more restrictive outfits - as it progressed, even if their job (eg. Nurse) required them to see clearly, they had to comply with covering their eyes. Most had restrictions on where they could go and what they could do. The horrors committed (not just imprisonments, police units on the streets and heads on spikes etc but also children’s clubs so their children followed the ideology strongly and were encouraged to report wrongdoing, celebrations of ‘martyrhood’ so you couldn’t grieve or feel anything if a husband died* etc) a culture of fear. It was cleverly run from a psychological perspective to continue propaganda at every point.

*If you’d even managed to get to know him and had got on with him at all. Even if not, you were thrown into chaos knowing you had to remarry and the next man may be violent or follow the law even more stringently.

I really feel for the girl. It's very sad

Absolutely zero pity. I don't want current or previous members of Isis roaming our streets.

She wanted to be an IS bride. She stated she was quite cheerful about seeing beheaded bodies.

Best she gets on with it now.☹️

I concur with those that argue she was a child when she elected to join Isis. What is harder to excuse is the relentless enthusiasm for hunting down and brutally punishing women who were often not even actually guilty of infringements of Sharia law. She was not a child then