UK-born woman Shamima Begum who joined ISIS loses appeal over citizenship removal
UK-born woman Shamima Begum who joined ISIS loses appeal over citizenship removal
She left London for Syria in 2015 when she was 15, and married an ISIS fighter. Read more at straitstimes.com.
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I’m gonna agree with the UK on this one, you wanna fuck off and join ISIS you can live with the decision elsewhere.
A child who was groomed and sex trafficked by terrorists is now being punished for it. Also this is a punishment that is only being applied to her because she has Bangladeshi ancestors so the government argues she is hypothetically eligible for a Bangladeshi passport (which the government of Bangladesh has no intention of giving her), and so the Tories can pretend they're not illegally rendering her stateless.
This is literally a punishment that, by the Tories' own formulation of their rule, would not be applied if the sex trafficking victim was a white girl called Shania with English parents instead of a brown girl called Shamima.
We're supposed to be a country where people are treated equally before the law. But the Tories are now claiming that they and any future government has the right to render any Briton with some hypothetical right to a foreign passport (for example, most second generation immigrants and every single Jewish Briton) stateless at the whim of the home secretary.
Great summary, but I want to point out that the reality of why they're doing this is to pander to racist voters who were told their opinion by a highly effective villification campaign against this woman in tabloid newspapers.
Once these things gain traction, politicians always kowtow to the loudest public opinions
Totally. In my alternative scenario where she was a blonde-haired blue-eyed white girl called Shania, the Daily Express would have turned her into a Madeleine McCann-like figure and campaigned every day on their front pages to 'bring our girl home'.
Should all children who are groomed and exploited be cast out? Or just those children who are groomed and exploited in specific ways?
@Zellith this, she was groomed in the UK and trafficked at age 15 by a people smuggler (who was actually a 5 Eyes/ Canadian asset, what's worse).
And "married" off a few days later.
Anyone who thinks 15 is too young for the age of consent should face the fact she wasn't capable of consenting to any of that.
No, fuck her.
Shamima Begum 'was member of feared Isis morality police' in Syria
Begum asked for the UK's forgiveness and claimed that she still supported "some British values". She said she had been partly inspired to join IS by videos of fighters beheading hostages and also of "the good life" under the group. When asked about the Manchester Arena bombing, she said she was shocked and didn't "know about the kids", then said it was wrong to kill innocent people, but that IS considered it justified as retaliation for the coalition bombing of IS-held areas. When questioned about rape, enslavement and murder of Yazidi women, she claimed, "Shia do the same in Iraq".*
on February 2019, her father Ahmed Ali said, "If she at least admitted she made a mistake then I would feel sorry for her and other people would feel sorry for her, but she does not accept her wrong." Begum reacted by stating that she regretted speaking to the media and said the UK is making an example out of her.
I suppose you're of the belief that Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe shouldn't be gaoled for the murder of Brianna Ghey as well because they were only 16 and what could they possibly know about right or wrong being little children, unable to make decisions on their own.
She is an unremorseful piece of utter shit who directly caused suffering onto others, after being inspired by watching innocent people being murdered. A teenager is not some completely helpless thing, they are capable of making horrific decisions of their own will and sometimes they must live with the consequences of those choices as I'm sure you no doubt agree should happen such as with the Ghey case. If it was something minor, you could probably argue that it was just a stupid childhood mistake, this goes far above and beyond that.
@Deceptichum that's a pretty weird straw man.
Just to be clear I think she should be in jail (or juvenile before that) for participating in war crimes.
She should be in a British jail.
Disowning your citizens when they commit crimes overseas and turning them into the world's problem - more specifically the problem of very impoverished nations like Syria and Bangladesh - is an irresponsible, selfish, and shitty thing for the UK to do.
Bruh she was a fuckin rape snitch for isis. She should very much face justice in the country she committed her crimes in not "just a spot of war crime tourism".
It's not a view I think you hold, it's an example of how I think you don't adhere to your 'she wasn’t capable of consenting' argument because I hope you agree that Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were able to 'consent' to their own actions at a similar age.
And if you don't think she can consent, and is actually a victim in all this, why do you want her gaoled?
@Deceptichum I had never heard of those people and had to google them. I... really don't want to deep dive into true crime right now so I don't hold an opinion on whether they can be sucessfuly rehabbed but the point I made elsewhere about child soldiers applies in general - it's a difficult area to deal with, but Western countries need to step up.
My guiding principle here is that I believe human rights are inalienable.
I'm arguing against the idea that there is anything a 15 year old can do that strips them of their human rights.
And it's ironic that if she'd just been trafficked to Rotherford or something half the people deriving enjoyment from her current status would have had a different response.
She voluntarily chose to go join ISIS after watching videos of people being beheaded, you make it sound like she was kidnapped off of the street and shipped to the middle east against her will.
The British government bears responsibility for letting that happen to one of their citizens either way. The responsible thing to do is to imprison them yourselves, not leaving them stuck in a ramshackle detention camp in rebel held territory in Syria.
@Deceptichum you should take a look at the wikipedia article about the girl that was taken the previous year, it's quite eye ipening about the methods this cult used to prey on these kids.
The worst part is it could have been prevented - her father warned police that these other 15 year olds were at risk and all they did is give the kids themselves a letter to bring to their parents.
Just a completely unrelated fyi here: On lemmy you don't need to tag a user when you're replying directly to one of their comments, they'll automatically get a notification in their inbox.
@_dev_null thanks, I know.
The reason it turns up in my comments is because kbin autopopulates our comments with tags, and I don't always remember to check where I am and delete that before I post.
On Kbin itself they're handy. Kbin integrates with Mastodon and those guys kind of need @tags to follow our conversation threads when they come to discuss our posts.
And on lemmys, the @ is useful for me to keep track of who I'm saying what to anyway at times because our threading can't handle some of the really big lemmy comment sections.
Just those who joined a literal terrorist cell I’d say. It’s not their fault, but giving brainwashed, radicalized religious zealots citizenship in the very societies they left to destroy is even more wrong. And while we shield children from most consequences, some things are too heinous to forgive like that.
Its not about giving her citizenship, she already had it from birth but had it stripped away under the pretence that she could get Bangladeshi citizenship (which they dispute). This is essentially the UK trying to dump its problems elsewhere and setting the awful precedent that if you have recent ancestors with another nationality you can be stripped of the one you were born with.
By all means punish her, lock her up for 30 years for all I care, but trying to pretend she isn't British and foisting the problem elsewhere is disgusting.
The Daily Telegraph reported that Begum had developed a reputation as an enforcer amongst other members of IS and had tried to recruit other young women to join the group.
I’m having a hard time working up any sympathy honestly.
She’s a citizen of the caliphate or whatever now?
I don't see any need for sympathy for her, as I said lock her up for however long is appropriate. The problem is the UK trying to dump its problem citizens on other countries and setting a dangerous precedent for stripping away peoples citizenship and potentially leaving them stateless (which is against all sorts of international agreements)
This seems hardly like a recurring theme. But clearly seems legal under british law.
Seems like she can and should be tried in Syria.
Don't worry so much, I am sure Allah will provide for her in the refugee came she helped create.
Its sad that bigots like you cant read the either of the times where I said I dont have sympathy for her and would have no problem with her being put in jail for what she did. Somehow I get the feeling their wouldnt be this same lust for stripping someone of their citizenship of birth if her mum was French.
I find it sad that bigots like you don't respect Islam.
giving brainwashed, radicalized religious zealots citizenship in the very societies they left to destroy is even more wrong
I can't work out which side you're arguing for here. A British citizen went to Syria to attack Syrians.
Britain then made the Syrians pay for her upkeep. At one point the Syrians specifically the Kurds were being forced to pay for the upkeep of hundreds of Westerners who had come to kill them. It's really messed up.
She should be in a British jail.
I suppose I am just generally in disagreement with the concept that anyone has to be responsible for enemies of their host society.
Exiling people who harm or oppose the community in a dangerous way has been a reasonable and accepted practice since forever. For that matter, I would love to exile our German fascist supporters to Russia so they can die for the führer they so idolize. These people are technically brainwashed too, victims of Russian disinformation campaigns. Does that absolve them from responsibility? No.
To return to the original example: If they want to join a religious terrorist group, alright, but then they are that group's responsibility. If that group are just stateless, disorganized fanatics that couldn’t possibly provide a good way of life for anyone even if they had the resources, that’s not anyone’s problem but their own.
There are some things that are not forgivable in my opinion, one of them is to set out to actively participate in a religious terror campaign. Why should any other society be responsible for them?
Well in your scenario she would become the problem of Syria, and whatever you think of the Asaad regime there's a reason these types of exiles are not accepted under international law. When a large county uses a smaller society as its de facto prison it doesn't tend to work out too well for the natives (see Australia), so it's just not allowed in principle. In reality the British are trying to say it's Bangladesh's problem since her parents are from there which doesn't really make sense.
see Australia
Interesting that a British prison colony has become at least (if not more) civilized than their jailers...
@GregorGizeh thanks for this comment. I do understand your perspective now and you've explained it well.
I think you and I just have some different principles. For you, if someone breaks the social contract then they lose some of their human rights. For me, they don't, human righs are inalienable, and importantly that person also remains the responsibility of the society that produced them.
I acknowledge that human rights are a modern concept and as you point out, making people stateless/exiling has a ling tradition in human history. So are a lot of things I disagree with, though.
Thanks for the exchange of ideas.