Shamima Begum

[Deutsch Wolf]

Bangladesh have confirmed she isn't a citizen and they won't let her in. So we've made her stateless, excellent work.

 

[Parkins left foot]

Bangladesh have confirmed she isn't a citizen and they won't let her in. So we've made her stateless, excellent work.

Quite right that Bangladesh have taken that stance - we really shouldn't be pushing our issues onto others, real moral cowardice on the Government's part. She was born here & lived in the UK all her life till she went to Syria.

Either we leave her where she is & fight any return or we allow it & permit the Security Services/Courts deal with her when she arrives. There have been a fair number of other returnees who haven't had their citizenship revoked.

 

[jdrodrigues]

Quite right that Bangladesh have taken that stance - we really shouldn't be pushing our issues onto others, real moral cowardice on the Government's part. She was born here & lived in the UK all her life till she went to Syria.

Either we leave her where she is & fight any return or we allow it & permit the Security Services/Courts deal with her when she arrives. There have been a fair number of other returnees who haven't had their citizenship revoked.

I would be in favor of the rule of law, as someone with a law degree. Nothing is above the law, despite how we may or may not feel.

 

[Deleted Cyber]

I would be in favor of the rule of law, as someone with a law degree. Nothing is above the law, despite how we may or may not feel.

The reaction has been exceptionally vitriolic but that is completed expected and I would say completely in line with what the family wanted. If you have an option where you cant get a fair trial then its a real card to play. I seem to remember the Lockerbie bomber played that card too . That trial was then held abroad in the netherlands.

This is the problem with the rule of law. She is never getting a fair trial here now there has been a shit storm.

 

[Sniffer]

Bangladesh have confirmed she isn't a citizen and they won't let her in. So we've made her stateless, excellent work.

Having watched the Sajid Javid on Peston last night, he stated that a British Home secretary has never made a citizen stateless. He wouldn't comment on individual cases but from his comments it would appear that she will be coming back to the UK.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

This is the problem with the rule of law. She is never getting a fair trial here now there has been a shit storm.

She was never getting a "fair trial" in the traditional sense as it would have been held in secret and likely she would not have been provided with all the evidence against her.

 

[Deleted Cyber]

She was never getting a "fair trial" in the traditional sense as it would have been held in secret and likely she would not have been provided with all the evidence against her.

Too late for that surely. We know who she is.That horse has bolted.

I am still in the " what the hell do you charge her with?" camp.

If she has any sense she will keep her big gob shut from now on. Her lack of remorse helps her not 1 bit.

First thing will be to sort the citizenship issue. That may be quick , it may be slow. Who knows
Then , there will already be investigatos looking for evidence and witnesses and then looking at what offences if any that evidence supports. That will include the CPS I would hope and presume.
All that will be going on in the background and thatwork will inform the next steps which are for me
1. Delay delay delay to allow time to get as much evidence as possible so a substantive charge can be laid if/when she comes home or
2. The evidence aleady exists and she gets charged and sent for trial as soon as she lands.

The Bangladesh dual citizenship was a time buying punt imho.

 

[Kenny]

The Bangladesh dual citizenship was a time buying punt imho.

Worked a treat. Got them a whole extra 14 hours.

 

[Deleted Cyber]

Worked a treat. Got them a whole extra 14 hours.

yes but thats still 14 hours to line up a few ducks. The police can hold you for up to 24 hours before they have to charge you with a crime or release you.

They can apply to hold you for up to 36 or 96 hours if you’re suspected of a serious crime, eg murder.

You can be held without charge for up to 14 days If you’re arrested under the Terrorism Act. If you think that a large amount of the investigative evidence would be from abroad ( if its traceable at all) and this investigation needs every minute.

 

[Kenny]

The 14 hours acheived nothing other than making people on Social Media delighted with the news. For most of that 14 hours the people involved were tucked up in bed asleep.

 

[Deleted Cyber]

The 14 hours acheived nothing other than making people on Social Media delighted with the news. For most of that 14 hours the people involved were tucked up in bed asleep.

I bow to your expertise then. The 14 hours clearly allowed for the Home secretary and all those that have been dragged in at short notice to get a decent kip and a good breakfast before starting their day as woodentops.

 

[Kenny]

No expertise required. It was a nonsense move that didn't need to be made and gained them nothing.

 

[Del Woppio]

It was a PR stunt, and it worked. And when she's back it'll probably be the fault of the ECHR

 

[Tyrannosaurus Dan]

And when she's back it'll probably be the fault of the ECHR

Which will then be used as another reason why we need Brexit even though the ECHR is nothing to do with the EU (despite the lady I work with stating the ECHR was one of the reasons she voted to leave).

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It's alright, Theresa May doesn't understand the difference either.

 

[Langers]

The text from an article from The Times. Rather a different of looking at the situation, compared to the dissenting voices on Twitter, Facebook and that of the UK Government.

Twelve hours before she fell into the eye of a social, legal and political storm, almost nothing that Shamima Begum told me was of particular surprise. Sitting together for 90 minutes, one-to-one, in the yard of the al-Hawl refugee camp that afternoon a week ago, she spoke very much like every other member of a radical Islamic militant group I had ever met.

Her lack of remorse? Her lack of regret? The failure to apologise? Her acceptance of the beheadings of journalists and aid workers?
I was not surprised by any of it, and nor should anyone else be. After four years living in the so-called caliphate, with no access to the outside world beyond that given to her by her Dutch Isis husband, Ms Begum behaved and spoke in the precise and predictable manner of any other indoctrinated member of Islamic State, among whose devotees she still lives at al-Hawl.

To expend anger over her point of view is a waste of energy. To expect different is naive. Over the past 25 years I have met jihadists in Bosnia, Chechnya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. They always sound the same.

Moreover, far from being removed from the thrall of the Isis death cult, the young British woman radicalised as a 15-year-old girl continues to live kettled within its confines. Most of the 40,000 people in al-Hawl camp belong to Isis families, and discipline is rigidly enforced there by foreign members of al-Khansaa, the all-female Isis morality police who burn down tents and beat women accused of transgression in the camp.

So not only will Ms Begum’s capabilities for individual thought, reason and feeling have been stunted by spending so long in Isis territory at such an influential age, she also lacks the liberty to speak freely even if she wanted to.

Yet unlike Sajid Javid, the home secretary, who has chosen to surf the national mood of rage towards the former Bethnal Green schoolgirl by revoking her British citizenship, I believe there is every reason to repatriate, investigate and rehabilitate — not banish — Ms Begum.

Aside from the specific legalities and moralities regarding her status as a minor when she entered Syria, buried within the rote-like repetitions of Isis vernacular that she used when speaking to me, Ms Begum also showed traits suggesting she would be an ideal candidate for a de-radicalisation programme.

Though much of the British media has collaborated with the popular fury, focusing on Ms Begum’s apparent inability to express regret or remorse, rushing to judge her on this basis, in reality the 19-year-old woman displayed considerable evidence of self-doubt and individual thought, despite the constraints of her circumstances.

The details of our meeting need a brief resume, as they were unique, not just for the amount of time and total privacy they afforded, but also because it was her first exposure to the outside world since she entered Syria in 2015; indeed, her first time alone.

We met in a reception room at al-Hawl early last Wednesday afternoon. Ms Begum entered the room in the company of another Isis wife, a Canadian called Amy Lucia Vasconez, 34, the widowed mother of two small boys.

A Syrian camp administrator and two foreign aid workers were in the room, as well as my interpreter. I asked for total privacy to conduct the interview and then left the room with both Isis women and moved to sit with them in a corner of the yard outside. No one else was present. After ten minutes Amy Vasconez also left. I continued speaking with Ms Begum for nearly an hour. She was reluctant at that stage for the interview to be taped, although later she agreed. The last 22 minutes of our conversation was recorded. The preceding hour and the final five minutes were not.

There are methods for interviewing radicals. Disassociation is a prime necessity for the interviewer: there is no point, for example, in allowing emotion or contempt to cloud the interview. I am not there to judge the interviewee. I am there to extract information and measure the likely extent of their radicalisation.

The need to find common ground early in the conversation is another requirement. I met Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, the two alleged members of the so-called Beatles Isis cell, in a jail in Syria last year. Despite their alleged involvement in torture and murder we managed to communicate over the shared ground of the Golborne Road in west London, near where we all had lived, and so we recapped on fish and chips, police and thieves. Sometimes we laughed together too. At one point I recalled being shot while a hostage in Syria and they cried “sobering, sobering”, trilling with delight.
“How much do you think you’d have been worth if you came into Islamic State’s hands?” Kotey had grinned.
“More than you are now!” I replied and we shared a good laugh at our reversed circumstances, loathing each other all the while.

I certainly did not loathe Shamima Begum. In essence, she was a classic victim turned potential perpetrator: the groomed minor sat before me as a radicalised young adult. Despite her predictable arrogance and didactic manner, her aura was primarily that of a confused and vulnerable young London woman. Most of the time we were together it seemed too that despite her outward composure she was in a state of grief and shock. Alone, frightened, she wanted someone to speak to. All I had to do was listen, coax and engage.
She spoke repeatedly and in anger over her husband’s six-and-a-half month imprisonment and torture in an Isis jail over spying charges. She talked also of the hypocrisy, cruelty and oppression within the organisation.
“I am scared,” she said. “I am so confused. I’m really naive.
“There’s so much oppression and corruption going on [within Isis] that I don’t really think they deserve the victory. Dawlah [Islamic State] has actually killed Muslims. People that have fought for them, they’ve killed. And for what? So you say you kill the non-Muslims and take care of the Muslims, but they don’t do that.”
“My husband said that while he was in [an Isis] prison there were men that had been tortured so badly that they were like ‘I’m just going to admit to being a spy so they can kill me’.”
These are extraordinary remarks for an Isis devotee to make, and suggest that within the mental confines placed upon her by the so-called caliphate there lurks an independently minded young woman who with the right help may be able to emerge from her radicalised state.
Indeed, Ms Begum is likely to be one of the most suitable adult candidates for rehabilitation of the scores of British adults who joined Isis and are believed to be in custody in northern Syria.

From a practical point of security, of course, Britain’s decision not to repatriate its Isis fighters, their wives and children from Syria is nonsensical. It is hypocritical too, as the public policy is a reversal of what has already been going on in private.
Since 2012, the UK has allowed about 400 British members of Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, once al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Syria, to return home. The majority of them have been male fighters. That Mr Javid has now chosen in public to revoke the citizenship of a young woman from Bethnal Green who was indoctrinated by Isis as a minor is an opportunistic decision made purely to pander to national mood, and has no foot in national security considerations.
Indeed, if the home secretary were to make his decisions based upon security, then he would push for the prompt repatriation from Syria of every single British Isis member, including Kotey and Elsheikh. The current situation, whereby more than 900 foreign fighters and nearly 3,000 foreign family members from 49 countries are cooped up in camps alongside thousands of Syrian and Iraqi Isis members in one of the most unstable parts of the Middle East is unsustainable; a calamity waiting to happen.

Yet so far, in the week since Ms Begum’s story emerged, little evidence of reasoned, informed consideration and debate has appeared. We would do well to realise that victory against Isis will be measured in no small part by our ability to have the confidence in our own legal system and values in dealing with British citizens who joined the jihadists.
If our institutions and sense of worth cannot deal fairly and appropriately with a runaway schoolgirl from Bethnal Green, who may well be more deserving of rescue and rehabilitation than hatred and condemnation, then we will indeed have become a very little England.

 

[pavlosmacwolf]

The thing that has upset me most about this whole charade is the level of utter hatred, hyperbole and resentment spouted by people I thought I knew well. People who I considered to be kind, good people.

Honestly, it's been appalling. "Let the bitch fry in hell", "fuck her, terrorist slag" etc etc. And yes, they're direct quotes from social media.

What the actual fuck makes people that wound up that they feel they have to resort to that kind of shit? It's like a competition to see who can be the most offended at the thought of her coming back to the UK.

I think it's a very complex situation with no easy answer, but I am growing very weary with the black or white extremes to things. If you don't think she should be shot, it must obviously mean you'd welcome her back into the country with open arms with full forgiveness. Issues like this one need to be looked at carefully, and the powers that be need to try and come up with other solutions, not ones that pander to either extremes for cheap political gain.

Speaks volumes when the most sense I've seen on the whole sorry subject has been from Danny fucking Dyer.

A very difficult subject, which takes me back to the B/ham pub bombings. i was on the stairs of the Tavern when it went off.
i was supposed to be DJ/ing at the Holiday Inn, where my lady was waiting for me. i got there after hospitals etc very late and entered wearing a beige suit covered in blood.
A guy stopped me in the reception and said "lets go and kill some paddies" and without a word, or a second thought, i decked him.

The problem with all this for the uninitiated, who learn about terrorism, death and suffering from the press, is frankly they do not know what they are talking about.When you see horror first hand it has a vastly different long term effect, and the only question you end up with, has to be WHY?

This girl, like it or not is British, as is her child and i believe, however much i might want to shoot her on sight, that she is the responsibility of the British government, my government. She should be afforded ( however much tax payers money it costs) a trial and suffer the justice provided by a court of law, not by the Daily Mail or the Sun.
British Justice, i believe is still as close to the fairest in the world as you can get. But most of all her innocent child is British, and deserve the rights that we all have fought for and stood for, for generations.
And that, wether i like it or not, it is the law.

I tell you, frankly, on the night of the pub bombings, after dragging parts of friends and others out of the rubble, if i had been confronted with the supposed guilty B'ham six. i would have happily topped them all, and what i cunt i would have turned out to be.
bravo Langers, real justice, is never an easy shout.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

The world has become black and white, there are no longer shades of grey. There are good guys and bad guys and nothing in between, like we’re living some Hollywood movie.

To understand why someone does something does not mean you condone it. To try and understand it does not mean you support it.

I want us to know what caused this young girl to be so disaffected with her life or excited by ISIS that she would leave behind her friends and family to effectively give away her body and her mind. If we choose not to try and understand, how can we prevent it from happening again.

I can understand why Irish men and women (and children) resorted to violence in Northern Ireland and beyond. I don’t condone it, it was never the solution, but I can understand it. I can understand why black South Africans turned to violence. I can understand why Tommy Robinson exists.

We are in a perpetual state of conflict worldwide, there is always a war somewhere for some reason but anti-war rhetoric is unpatriotic, challenging the good guy/bad guy rhetoric is just being a snow flake.

This woman needs to be held responsible by the country that is responsible for her. If we choose not to engage then we will choose to disengage from every similar situation. That should not be who we are.

 

[pavlosmacwolf]

The text from an article from The Times. Rather a different of looking at the situation, compared to the dissenting voices on Twitter, Facebook and that of the UK Government.

Nothing else need be said by the Daily Heil or anyone else who just doesn't have a fact to go on, and i include the home secretary in that bunch.

 

[Langers]

Nothing else need be said by the Daily Heil or anyone else who just doesn't have a fact to go on, and i include the home secretary in that bunch.

Well it's clear what Javid is doing. From the extract I posted above:

Since 2012, the UK has allowed about 400 British members of Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, once al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Syria, to return home. The majority of them have been male fighters. That Mr Javid has now chosen in public to revoke the citizenship of a young woman from Bethnal Green who was indoctrinated by Isis as a minor is an opportunistic decision made purely to pander to national mood, and has no foot in national security considerations.

Can't think why he'd do that. Tories gotta Tory I guess.