She'd be somewhere between Sam Smith and Markle if I were to hazard a guess.
Shamima Begum, IS teen wants to come back to the UK
- Thread starter Tommy
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Yes, it should. A country shouldn't be able to deport its own citizens. No matter how much you want them gone. They are their own countries responsibility to manage.
This outcome essentially means, if you are born here but are the child of an immigrant, you have less rights as a UK citizen.
I still think if she had blonde heir and blue eyes we would've had a different outcome. If not only the media narrative.
This is really sad. We don't get to choose where we're born and the place where we entered this world will always be home no matter where we go or what we become. No one should be able to take that away from a person. Home is home. It shouldn't matter where her parents are born. The only thing that matters is where she was born. Taking that away from someone is wrong in so many ways.
It is still very much possible. I mean your average kid at 15 is a nut case anyway. Some are obsessed with a football club, a band, a movie star, a weird hobby etc.
In general life is a continuous lesson and you will be another person at 30.
Yes, she made a grave mistake, but she was 15. Her parents and her social environment have actually failed her.
This just isn't true. Loads of 15, 16 year olds volunteer their holidays for laudable causes, help their single parents with younger siblings, take responsibility etc.
I arguably was a better person then than I'm now. (And it's life experience which has made me a bit "nastier").
Many countries are the same. My son was born in Italy but needed to stay x years to become a citizen, and even if he did he would still be seen as British first and foremost.
The only difference is none of the other countries have tested their law in this way.
Begum was a British citizen, though, and not even a dual national. This talk about how citizenship is or should be decided is interesting as a general topic, but it's not really relevant to this specific case. She was a British citizen, now she's stateless.
What term do you prefer to use when a 15 year old is persuaded away from her home and family before quickly finding themselves married and pregnant?
Is there another term for it? Can a 15 year old consent?
The Bangladeshi authorities said very early on that they would not be even considering granting her citizenship of their country. She didn't apply for it before all of her exploits with ISIS and that opportunity has now gone for good. She doesn't get automatic Bangladeshi citizenship just by asking for it, she originally had the right to apply for it and that right no longer exists.
I've always felt in this case that the UK government has been underhanded on this matter. Taking away citizenship because someone could theoretically become a citizen of some other country is wrong.
I've always felt in this case that the UK government has been underhanded on this matter. Taking away citizenship because someone could theoretically become a citizen of some other country is wrong.
You joke, but the right wing press is repeatedly pushing the line that the left is 'sympathetic to her cause'. Believing she's a horrible individual that should be in a British jail, rather than cheering the government dumping its problem citizens on the rest of the world, is hardly 'feeling sorry for her'. It's so deliberately disingenuous but people en masse are too thick to recognise the difference.
There's a tinge of classism / colonialism with the whole Bangladesh thing as well.
Would the UK make her stateless if her dad was a US citizen and in the USA, or European etc?
Luckily the getting married and pregnant part isn't the issue. A 15 year old can't consent to that. They can however consent to committing a crime and going to Syria to join IS is exactly that.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but didn't she go to Syria of her own free will? If so, why do people keep saying the UK dumped her in a camp in the desert and so forth? She's just been told she can't come back hasn't she?
I'm not saying that I agree with that decision, by the way, I just think it's a bit dishonest to keep pedalling the line that she has been deported or something.
I'm not saying that I agree with that decision, by the way, I just think it's a bit dishonest to keep pedalling the line that she has been deported or something.
No-one is saying that. The decision was not letting her back in rather than kicking her out.
It's been said a handful of times in the last 2 pages. Even one of your own posts mentions dumping our problems on other countries.
Because by removing her ability to return means she has to stay there. So 'abandoned' is more accurate than 'dumped'. Either way it's an immoral and despicable decision.
Ah, ok. If that wasn't clear, I meant we're forcing other countries to deal with our problem citizens by not taking them back and putting them through our justice system.
Maybe abdicating our responsibilities would've been a better phrase than dumping them on others.
Yes of course the decision is wrong, I'm not arguing that. Just feel there's no need to add in the 'dumped' language along with the bad decision.
Probably just being pedantic. The recent trend of repeating untruths until they become accepted truths has scarred me.
Yes, fair enough. See my above post about me being a pedant!
I posted this three years back when the initial decision was made and am frankly quite embarrassed by it.
While I still reserve anger for how she choose to join ISIS, I still think it's racist the way that she is having her citizenship revoked when there are worse criminals who would not just because their parents were born in the UK. It's creating a two tier class of citizens, which is blatantly going to impact people of color, essentially perpetuating the rhetoric that people from families who immigrated are not as English as the others.
And then I'm sure these same government officials who made these laws will say they will stand up to racism, when this law is racist in itself.
It's good to be clear on these things and I'm not averse to a bit of pedantry.Yes, fair enough. See my above post about me being a pedant!
Good on you - nice to see people who are able to grow from their previous opinions (and I'm not saying your previous opinion was wrong either [apart from the baby bit]).
It is the UK’s problem I believe but it isn’t about race/colour.
Jihadi Jack says hello
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/18/jack-letts-stripped-british-citizenship-isis-canada
Even with the grooming angle, I had no sympathy with Begum on this but then thought about the grooming gangs and how in that story it was white girls get groomed by brown guys then the brown guys are terrible because they took advantage of white girl's innocence. But then when a brown girl gets groomed she's evil and she knew what she was doing.
Even when it comes to white girls getting grooming by far right terrorists:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...terror-charges-is-wake-up-call-about-grooming
Again, very different angle to her story, being more sympathetic, because of her skin color and religion.
Even when it comes to white girls getting grooming by far right terrorists:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...terror-charges-is-wake-up-call-about-grooming
Again, very different angle to her story, being more sympathetic, because of her skin color and religion.
This is false equivalency to draw parallels between these cases. Especially the ones where girls were groomed to be raped and not participate in any illegal activity.
I think Begum should be allowed to come back to UK and face terror charges that Govt can try her for. But that is on the principle of Govt not having the powers to strip citizenships from general populace for any reason. Her culpability being void due to any possible grooming is a different issue. As late as 2019, she has gone on record and failed to fully show remorse for her previous actions or condemn extremists group linked to ISIS. Also in any case, despite being groomed if you take any illegal action as an adult that should have legal repercussions anyhow.
Yes to this.
If I had joined ISIS and killed and tortured numerous people, and behaved in the most despicable ways imaginable, I would not have my citizenship removed because my parents and grandparents were British.
We are punishing people based on where their family is from, rather than what they have done.
And this is the same government who opposes the UK apologising for colonial wrongs because those of us alive now should not be held responsible for things that we didn't do. Consistency much?
Maybe you are right.
it is only one example and also slightly different though, because he already had dual citizenship setup for both Canada and the UK before his offences.
The post above by @hasanejaz88 makes a good point.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...terror-charges-is-wake-up-call-about-grooming
I think you are correct. The whole deprivation of citizenship process is structurally deeply problematic. It may not be overtly based on race as it applies to people who could get a citizenship elsewhere, but that in practice means it disproportionately (and unjustifiably) is used against Britons of colour. You get punished not for what you do, but for where your parents were born.
What colour hair and eyes did Jihadi Jack have?
You can probably check his Canadian passport if you want to know, which makes these two cases fundamentally different.
The cases are (a bit) different, but the poster wrote/implied that she had her citizenship revoked because of race, and that a white person wouldn't have had the same. Jack had his revoked, just like Shamima. I guess he's lucky he got his Canadian passport. I guess it's tough shit for Shamima she didn't. She's been lucky getting all her lawyers and appeals paid for by whoever, so you win some, you lose some. Feck her.
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It's a bit of a joke as well because she doesn't even have Bangladeshi citizenship nor will Bangladesh ever grant it to her.
I'm of the same background, from the east end, and though most of us aren't likely to go join groups like Isis, the possibility now exists that we could be made stateless because the precedent exists. And that'll come down to the whims of Conservative politicians and judges like Justice Jay who by many accounts is a piece of work.
The topic is a deep one for me personally because when I was young I was also naive and quite religious, which in my late teens and early 20s I grew out of and am no longer religious at all. I remember when Islamic state first sprung up there was quite a bit of support from the general Islamic community, due to the idea of a caliphate being formed which a lot of Muslims longed for. This was pre the atrocities being known, and so for me it's not hard to see how young girl could be lured into that idea. Indeed at the time a lot of young doctors went off to join.
In the end it's all a bit of a mess and just sad.
You only need to go through this thread to see that there are people (who just so happen to be left leaning) that believe she's a naive victim who was groomed and trafficked into servitude as a child. It's actually deliberately disingenuous of you to not acknowledge it, regardless of your opinion on those views.
A person can be a victim and then go on to do horrible things. No one is suggesting leaving her off the hook just because she probably started as a victim.
I'm not ignoring it, but I don't know how much weight to place on the fact she was groomed as a child in this instance. I don't have sufficient knowledge of the law to understand the boundaries of criminal culpability, age and the role of outside of influencers, ie those grooming, and the fact she was clearly committing offences a few years into adulthood.
Plus the age of criminal responsibility is much lower than that of consent I understand, eg the Bulger killers being found guilty, which adds a further layer of confusion to me as a layman.
I don't think anyone in the thread is dismissing her actions, saying you can't blame her because she was groomed as a child. It is a factor though, albeit how much probably of one most people here have no idea, I certainly don't, and very few would surely argue against her deserving punishment- it should be in a British jail in my view, not through exclusion from the country.
How else would you describe it?
- 15yr old groomed whilst in UK to be an ISIS bride.
- Convinced by her groomers to travel to Syria where the consent laws are different so she could marry
- Is specifically helped to get to Syria by an agent of Canadian intelligence trying to embed with the group, and allegedly known about by the British government.
Remove the word ISIS from the topic and the sentiment is very different.
It’s not like anyone’s suggesting she comes back, carries on like nothing happened. She’s likely be the most surveilled person in the country. But could you imagine the value she’d have giving talks about her story to school kids and warning about radicalisation.
All that the current sentiment does is isolate her and, by extension, sympathisers who might be more susceptible to radicalisation.
The cynic in me thinks she won't be convicted due to jurisdictional issues or some such wheeze, which her legal team have all lined up ready if they can just get her back into the UK.
Then the compensation claim and the book deal and everyone will forget what an absolute disgrace of a human being she is.
The judgments have made clear that the age of consent doesn't apply to her travels to Syria and IS involvement. Its a factor but its not black and white as it would be with sex and marriage.
Well there are plenty of non criminal measures on the books that could be used to ensure surveillance and monitoring. And we have laws that would prevent her publishing a book or making money (which we used against Soviet defectors).
It just strikes me as a bit of a mess when the UK has passed a law providing immunity to covert intelligence sources, as well as laws giving intelligence agents the right to kill, and the UKG is publicly worrying about not being able to prosecute ISIS recruits who return home.
No but a credible case was found for sex trafficking which usually would usually lead to a presumption of no consent given her age under English law. But that's a moot point as SIAC basically said the Home Secretary's determination of what national security is can override everything, including allegations of bias and failing to consider relevant factors.