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.

If she's been groomed, it's in how to change her narrative to win support to get her back into the UK. I watched an interview with her about a year ago and she was saying how much she loved her husband. Now she's saying he was abusive and she doesn't want anything to do with him. Anything she said in the past that showed her lack of compassion, she's saying now that she was scared to say differently.

There was a journalist that interviewed her for a documentary and championed her to be returned to the UK. But now he's changed his mind. He's kept in touch with her and watched her when not being recorded for interviews. He now says she shouldn't be allowed back. That she's just interested in being a media personality rather than having any remorse.
There were times, though, that I quite liked her and I did despise questions journalists asked her. I don't want her to come back but I don't know if that's a sustainable position or where it will ultimately lead to. Presumably if Starmer gets elected, as a human rights lawyer, he'll be championing her cause to return. As one of the most experienced balusters, it will certainly put him in a position to make a decision about it.

There’s a huge difference between a 15 year old falling for the temptation of drugs alcohol and attention, particularly growing up in difficult circumstances versus a 15 year old who travelled half way across the world to join a bloodthirsty terrorist organisation.

The documentary was highly problematic; did Shamima Begum really try to claim the first she knew about what ISIS were doing is when she saw a video as she arrived? We all know that is untrue. ISIS had never hidden their intent.

Case in point, I was actually asked to report on them in Iraq when they first emerged publicly, and this was prior to Shamima leaving the U.K. Even at that point we knew what they were up to and they were already slaughtering innocent people in the name of their ‘religion.’ I didn’t go as it was not safe for a western reporter to be there, though I know a couple got interviews in the end.

We all saw the twitter account she had been using while there too. It was published in the media and it was vile. Was it not her account posting photos of human heads without bodies?

No, it is right to make an example out of her, in the same way we should be making an example of all of them. As you mentioned there are plenty of dangerous people living in the U.K. and we don’t need more. I am from an immigrant background and I firmly believe that if you don’t respect the laws, morals and people of this country you do not deserve to be here. Full stop.

She should be brought back even if it’s straight to a cell for her for a while.

If it was a White British teenage girl who’d been taken in authorities would’ve been more sympathetic.

If it was a White British teenage girl who’d been taken in authorities would’ve been more sympathetic.

Cant speak for the authorities but personally, I felt equally animosity towards the white Sally Jones.

She absolutely appears neurodiverse to me, I say that as a ND person. Whilst she is still stuck in Syria she is unable to express her true thoughts as she is in a camp with ISIS supporters.

Bring her back, even if it’s just to keep her in prison for the foreseeable.

Is it fair her using up resources in the camp, and bringing it media attention? Surely it’s exposing the camp?

My daughter would not be OK with seeing severed heads in bins as she walked down the street. Begum bragged about being cool with that in the early days. She gives herself away whenever she opens her mouth.

@hellobethyname sorry nothing to do with your actual post but what are these bail hostels you mention? Are they run by probation? How do I know if one is near me?!

There’s a huge difference between a 15 year old falling for the temptation of drugs alcohol and attention, particularly growing up in difficult circumstances versus a 15 year old who travelled half way across the world to join a bloodthirsty terrorist organisation.

Drinking a bit of alcohol with friends is different to the sort of grooming of children some adults do, where they groom the children for criminal and sexual exploitation, often with alcohol, drugs, or expensive gifts involved.

One issue of CSE and CCE that's raised in safeguarding training is that the children don't consider themselves victims. They don't see that the adults that are their boyfriends/girlfriends/friends are actually groomers and manipulators who target children. They believe that they have a genuine romantic relationship/friendship. When speaking about the adults, the children will speak positively and speak like the relationship was a relationship of equals.

For someone like Shamima, who's been all over the press worldwide after being groomed by a terror group as a child and then lived through a war seeing the brutality of Isis first hand, she's likely to have buckets of trauma.

The girls in the Rotherham case were also blamed for being complicit in their own abuse too. It's a worrying trend to blame girls for being groomed by adults.

SB has committed crimes and is a British citizen. She needs to be put on trial in the UK and we have a responsibility to sort our own criminals out, especially when they were groomed on our soil as a child.

SB was wearing western clothes in the interview. How is that allowed yet when they filmed parts of the camp the other women were completely covered up? Part of the grooming/poster girl?

I don't understand how you can strip someone of British nationality, who doesn't have another nationality.
If she was white British, not from a family of immigrants they wouldn't have done that.
It just shows they/ a lot of people don't think that Shamima and people like her are actually, really British. I mean because she is the daughter of immigrants, not because of what she's done.

I watched it and she’s just a smug little liar, I don’t believe a word that comes out her mouth. Hope she tots in jail in Syria

Yes this is what I don’t understand.
The argument she isn’t left stateless seems to be based on the fact she could apply for citizenship with Bangladesh. But she doesn’t actually have Bangladeshi citizenship so they have made her stateless.

whatever your thoughts on SB personally I don’t understand how people being left stateless works? They just float about in no man’s land forever? Can citizenship be taken away from anyone?

@Onnabugeisha you’re either wilfully lying, or making huge assumptions to further your own agenda, but either way, you are wrong.

“Arbitrary deprivation of nationality”, which means deliberately moving to make a citizen stateless, is prohibited under Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is particularly explicit on this point.

I'll save my sympathies for the innocent 15 year olds blown to smithereens in Manchester thanks.

Just watched it last night.

Hearing her story about how she and her husband fled and the children dying of malnutrition was tough.

He is clearly of a patriarchal mindset and I think that could extend to justifying domestic abuse, although they clearly had some feelings for each other in the beginning, so I believe her on that. There were other areas where her story has changed and where she refused to answer, so I don’t think she’s necessarily as ‘innocent housewife’ as she claims.

The posh sunglasses and constant sorting her hair out did annoy me, I wonder if she walks around like that now or is it an image for the cameras?

In terms of what should happen to her, the then Home Secretary has clearly been advised that she shouldn’t come back. It’s odd that she seems to be the only ex-British person we know about who has had this decision made. How can her threat be so extreme compared to others? That’s something none of us will probably ever know and that’s why there is the constant speculation and debate.

But she herself said at the end that her destiny is to stay in the camp, because of what she did and she’s probably right, in my opinion.

Everything about her was fake.
Her smirking and arrogant attitude, and her seemingly unsympathetic attitude towards bomb victims. What about her nonchalant attitude towards seeing the heads of victims in bins in the street, and her uncaring attitude towards life in general?. Nah, none of it adds up. You don’t go to one of the these places and live with weapons smugglers and not be part of it or know anything!

The documentary only cemented my low opinion of her.

All the ‘clearly’ s🙄😂

I missed the start so didn't see how she had been drawn into ISIS.

However what I did see was uncomfortable viewing. I find it hard to believe her when she says she saw no evidence of atrocities (apart from heads in bins that didn't bother her at all, apparently).

I find it hard to believe that all she did was sit at home playing wifey to a convicted criminal and took no part in ISIS activities.

I feel for her, losing 5 babies, but can't help but feel her U-turn was only as a result of grief from her loss of her third child and not because she renounces ISIS in any way.

She didn't come across as sincere to me at all, except when talking about her sadness at losing her children - that was the only time I felt I'd seen the real Shamima. She deflected, lied and then just refused to answer certain questions.

I don't believe she should be illegally stateless, but I am not sure she should be back in the UK either.

You can be sympathetic to more than one person or group of people at once!

From my understanding, it's not even clear that she is automatically eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship. But in any case, why should they take responsibility? She was groomed here.

I wonder if we should ask ourselves what makes a British young person, who's theoretically able to practice whatever religion they wish, wear the clothes they choose, marry or not marry as they please, entitled to an education if they wish to take it, choose to go to the Islamic State? If I were Prevent, I think I'd focus more at the outset on saying "your life will be shit and you'll have no rights or freedom" rather than introducing concepts which teenagers may not be able or willing to engage with.

But what causes it? Why are they so disenchanted? It seems like sth worth pondering.

I wonder how life works in the camp where Shamima lives. Are there only women there?

If she was white British, not from a family of immigrants they wouldn't have done that

Has everyone forgotten Jack Letts?

That's what I don't get @ChoccyJules , that other male terrorist threats have not been stripped of their citizenship and allowed back to the UK to face justice here but SB has been denied that.

It looked to be mainly women and children in the footage last night but there are men in the camp as well. SB and the narrator referred to some of the women being so loyal to Isis that it makes it a dangerous boiling pot to leave them all there, not just SB.

I’d actually not heard that name. Which in itself is interesting.

However a google search suggests he was not left stateless by having his citizenship removed as he had Canadian citizenship too.

It’s odd that she seems to be the only ex-British person we know about who has had this decision made.

Yes I agree. As I said upthread what about the other 60 or so British women in the camp? Why is all the attention on Begum?