Anyone watched the shamina begum documentary on bbc 2 ?

[hellobethyname]

Just watching it now

I've changed my mind . She was a child , groomed , no idea what she was getting into .

I don't think we should demonise one child forever . There are much bigger threats out there that people don't even realise.

She literally said in an early interview she was inspired to go join ISIS from watching videos, including beheadings of British captives :
”May I ask, what was it that attracted you? Was it from watching videos, was there somebody who recruited you? What was it that prompted a 15-year-old girl to go to Syria?

During the time I left, al-Dawla (Islamic State) was on the news and stuff, and like a lot of videos were coming out and I saw all the videos on the internet and that just kind of attracted me to them. Like it attracted a lot of people.”

“Did you know what Islamic State were doing when you left for Syria? Because they had beheaded people. There were executions.?

Yeah, I knew about those things and I was okay with it. Because, you know, I started becoming religious just before I left. From what I heard, Islamically that is all allowed. So I was okay with it.”

Of course now she is saying she only saw some propaganda of families playing in a utopia.
”The 23-year-old Londoner was speaking in a BBC documentary that will air on Tuesday night. “I’d only seen one small clip of an Isis propaganda video,” Begum explained. “Families in the parks together, the men saying ‘come here, come with your families’. It’s safe, you can live a good Islamic life here... you can go to paradise.””

She's Bengali, not Pakistani. And why should they take her? She's never even been there, I'm not certain she even speaks the language. I believe her mother was born there but isn't a citizen, so I am not sure SB would qualify in any circs.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/isis-british-jihadis-return-uk-iraq-syria-report-islamic-state-fighters-europe-threat-debate-terror-attacks-a8017811.html
Not seen it yet but will probably at some point. It's ironic that many of the actual fighters are back in the UK and the authorities are not necessarily tracking their activities....

Do you feel that you have made a mistake? When you look back at what you've been through over the last four years, do you feel like you've made a mistake?

“A mistake in going to al-Dawla?”

Yes, a mistake in coming here, living under Islamic State.

“In a way, yes, but I don't regret it because it's changed me as a person. It's made me stronger, tougher. I married my husband. I wouldn't have found someone like him back in the UK. I had my kids. I did have a good time there, it's just that at the end things got harder and I couldn't take it anymore. I had to leave.”

She left when it got harder and it wasn’t a “good time” any more. No hint of oh, I couldn’t leave. No hint of an “abusive” marriage.

I watched tonight.

I have always believed that at 15 years old she was groomed in the same way kids have been groomed for sex and in county lines scenarios. And the decision to travel to Syria at 15 wouldn't have been an overnight decision, the grooming could have gone on for months beforehand.

What I found interesting in tonight's documentary was that seeing all the interviews together over the years, it looked even more obvious that she was completely brainwashed in the beginning to still remain sympathetic to Isis as well as looking completely traumatised in many of them. There was the suggestion that her body language was off and that she was acting/fake but to me it looks like a very traumatised young woman. Had she been crying her eyes out and apologising from the off she still would have been accused of being fake so she just cannot win in how she comes across.

Her inability to identify the Egyptian man was understandable given that another source in the documentary described him as a very bad man and that she is stuck in a camp with many Isis supporters.

She most definitely deserves to be held accountable and I think she should be allowed to return where she can be tried and monitored. The way she has been vilified only adds to her being a poster girl for Isis and as was pointed out at the end of the documentary the British girl who recruited SB is now back within Isis and if the same were to happen to SB then she would be more of a threat than having her monitored here in the UK.

But you haven’t watched it??

the documentary has investigated various aspects so people really should watch it or not comment on this thread

its clear that their propaganda didn’t show the horrific aspects but rather peace and blue skys

its also clear that she didn’t have any kind of life to enjoy - she was stuck in a hellhole apartment for months on end and needed to obey her husband

op I didn’t like her - i agree with you that I saw an element of vulnerability in her that k didn’t expect

The “documentary” is literally Shamina Evasively Rewrites Her Story In New Interview.

Do you know a huge percentage of inmates in prison have undiagnosed special needs ?

The fact she appears unemotional- it really wouldn't surprise me if she had something underlying that also made her quite susceptible to grooming .

And before anyone leaps on the band wagon with the "how dare you suggest this because not all sen folks are criminals " I have an adult son with autism who is perfectly law abiding and fine as a functioning adult male - but he is also one of the lucky ones and the people who end up in prison generally have parents who are totally bloody clueless or do t give a shit - so I'm not aligning all sen kids with criminal behaviour . I'm saying she appears to
Have something a little off kilter, amazing reserves of strength and a lack of emotional awareness, which could be an indicator of something more and which possibly made her a target for grooming in the first place . Women /girls mask so much better than boys .

In my experience a lot of the lads we monitor on prevent and who are very dogmatic in their beliefs have issues around sen , autism , adhd , and haven't been spotted before teenage years when they are incredibly susceptible to others ideologies and opinions .

Just a thought . And not a psychologist.

Just a mum and a person who works with criminality.

I watched. Groomed or not, the first step in rehabilitation is acceptance. She has not shown any acceptance of her part, decisions or enablement from the many documentaries I’ve seen.

You can’t rehabilitate someone in denial/refusal. She hiding details in the hope she doesn’t look any worse imo.

Or she's hiding details because she knows to reveal them would be a death sentence?

I thought that she did show acceptance in tonight's documentary. She was very awkward in the way she went about it but she did say she would face the consequences of her actions in a British court and she would like to stop other kids getting drawn into terrorist organisations.

Given that she is still surrounded by loyal Isis supporters you could argue she is very guarded about what she does and doesn't say.

Ok but she’s lost 3 kids and seen and been through things no one should ever have to because she decided the U.K. wasn’t what she wanted . She must have unbelievable trauma.
She won’t just be able to settle into normal life here .Why should we as the U.K. go to the time and trouble to sort her out. We don’t owe it to her and she’s done nothing to make Britain a better place. She needs to stay and help the communities she helped ruin.

Sorry but I don’t believe that for a second. The tank top, shorts, makeup and loose hair on show that she’s been sporting for years is enough for a “death sentence” under ISIS. They have no interest in assassinating Begum, wonder why that is? Perhaps it’s mission to get her back here?

That part was awful, that journalist should be ashamed he was positively gleeful. She should be returned to this country, charged and face the consequences here.

Perhaps. She is in a camp with supporters so I imagine that’s dictating some behaviours.

But her reality is she won’t be seen to be remorseful unless she is open. I genuinely think if she pursues a return to the UK she will have to open up regardless of the dangers to herself if she’s to change perspective.

Not saying that’s right, but I think it’s the reality.

This is what people are not understanding, she wasn’t able to speak freely, she said herself in the camp there are many ISIS supporters, she would be killed, she had to very careful with her words.

I think she is complicated. I do agree there's grooming involved and in that respect I'm sympathetic.

But some of her actions beyond that were at the more extreme end even for ISIS and she was pretty heavily involved in the recruitment of others. She is clearly capable and has a position of some influence, as far as that's possible as a woman.

While I think the other two girls had expressed desires to return before they were killed, she did not.

The conflict between her as a child and as an adult is difficult.

I must admit I also find the full western transformation insincere. She is still a Muslim woman and I find the total separation from that odd and calculated.

I don't think we've heard what she actually believes yet. The current version of her is crafted by her legal team, the previous version was a bewildered woman treading a difficult line in terms of safety. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Because she is the poster girl I feel it would have been wrong to make her return easy but I do think she will be back in the near future.

I haven’t watched it yet but I will do tommorow.
I was groomed by a teacher when I was 15/16, looking back on it, it’s hard for the adult me to understand how I fell for it. However I know that at 15 even though I was sensible, and fairly intelligent, I was emotionally and socially niave and he was an intelligent adult in his 30’s who spent a long period of time grooming me. Its hard to imagine as an adult how someone that age can be pulled into situations like this, but 15 is still a child and a time when your trying to work out the world around you, much easier to be groomed into abuse or an ideology.

I also think its wrong to be left stateless, she is a British Citizen and as such should be brought back. Put her on trial and send her to jail for her crimes.

I'm actually guilty of commenting without having yet watched (although I do intend to watch it) but I've been listening to the BBC podcast.

In the second episode, they interview one of her schoolfriends, who described her as "like a ghost" - so shy and withdrawn that you'd barely have noticed her. Shamima herself talks (not too coherently) about feeling neither part of English society nor part of Bengali society. Perhaps she felt a little ill at ease in both.

Another thing is, she's got some weird accent thing going on! I get she's been away a while but she sounds like a non-English speaker. I do see that kind of mimicry in people who are not confident or maladjusted in some way. It's very rare to change your accent that much. I have a friend from Scotland who's lived in London since she was 17 and she still sounds entirely Scottish - although it might have faded a little now. I've lived away from France for 16 years but I still sound the same if I speak to French people (although hopefully I sound less French in English by now!).

Changing accent is very common in asd.

Just something to consider.

I think that she was a child who was groomed, and then effectively trafficked for child sexual exploitation. I also think that she is our problem, and that we should not dump her on the rest of the world.

Is there really any evidence about the recruiting, slave marketing, suicide vest sewing, etc.? No doubt Shamima is talking some shit, but who's to say these rumours aren't just others talking crazy?

I also get the impression that her husband wasn't as evil as some, so for that reason she might have been less unhappy than others.

Yes, that's kind of what I was getting at. It's very marked.

It's very rare to change your accent that much.

I meant, it's very rare for your accent to change that much naturally. I clearly can't express myself in English after midnight, whatever my own accent is like!

No I get what you're saying jourdain.

I suspect something more was going on with her .