A woman who left the United Kingdom to join ISIS at the age of 15 has lost her Court of Appeal challenge over the decision to remove her British citizenship.

Shamima Begum flew to Syria in 2015 with two school friends to join the terror group. While there, she married an ISIS fighter and spent several years living in Raqqa.

Begum then reappeared in al-Hawl, a Syrian refugee camp, in 2019. She made international headlines as an “ISIS bride” after pleading with the UK government to be allowed to return to her home country for the birth of her son.

Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid removed her British citizenship in February that year, and Begum’s newborn son died in a Syrian refugee camp the following month. She told UK media she had two other children prior to that baby, who also died in Syria during infancy.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    Damn, that fucking sucks… but, like, refugees who didn’t voluntarily join an extremist group are definitely more worthy of asylum or other aide.

    • livus@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      She was 15 when she was trafficked to Syria by a people smuggler who turned out to be a Canadian asset.

      We have age of consent laws for a good reason.

      15 year olds have underdeveloped brains and sometimes make shit decisions, that’s why we don’t legally enable them to make decisions about stuff like this. This kid got groomed.

      • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I mean, that’s a fair argument… but she went off to join bloody isis. You don’t have to be too old to know what the hell isis is do and have done. I agree one mistake at 15 having such huge consequences is pretty bad… but it’s not like she stole her parents car and went on a joyride, she joined bloody terrorists. That’s gonna stick no matter how old you get because it’s insane. I do agree rendering her stateless is our fault and she should probably stay a citizen for that reason alone but she doesn’t deserve to move beyond the stigma of what she did even if she was very young when she did.

        • livus@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          @emax_gomax yeah what she did was really bad, and I think she needs jail and probably the really intense rehab they do for child soldiers.

          But it should be in the UK.

          Many many of the kids in DRC and Sierra Leone who get groomed or kidnapped into child soldier armies have committed war crimes. The social stigma they carry afterwards is a big problem and if they don’t get proper rehab they just end up in more violence.

          So I agree there are no easy answers. But the nation which produced the criminal should be the one who deals with it not dump it onto others.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        As I said, it fucking sucks - but I’d rather see Syrians who were caught in the middle of a war through no action of their own prioritized. I don’t know this woman and hope she can raise her family in peace - but I’d rather focus on locals first.

        • livus@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          @xmunk it’s not really a choice between those two things tho.

          Bit of a cop out, the reality is that Syrians have to pay to clothe, feed, and securely house someone who was groomed and radicalized in Britain.

          Exporting your criminals because you’d rather import worthier citizens isn’t a moral thing to do in my opinion.

          It’s basically taking advantage of the fact that Syrians are in no shape to expel the radicalized Westerners who came over there to kill them.

    • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      At least in my opinion, Hamas is the good guys. They are also labeled as an extremist group. So are we actually wrong to say ISIS is universally bad? I mean, both groups took power is response to foreign invaders just full on wrecking their shit constantly. Both groups employed Gorilla warfare to most effectively damage a far superior military. I’ve been recognizing more and more lately that America is almost always the bad guys in wars. So does that imply that ISIS was actually the good guys?

      Edit: Nope, we are not wrong for saying ISIS is bad. Thanks for the confirmation.

      • RegalPotoo@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        You are kinda glossing over an awful lot of wholesale slaughter carried out on civilians. It doesn’t count as “guriella war” war when the people you are shooting are civilians, not soldiers.

        The state of Israel and the IDF are undertaking a colonial, genocidal war in Palestine. That doesn’t make Hamas the good guys.

        • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          Damn, I really should have explicitly formulated that comment as a question asking whether my current beliefs are wrong, rather than stating incorrect opinions as a fact. Wait, hold on a second… I did do that!

      • sierraoscar@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        My dude, ISIS was literally burning people alive in cages. That’s not even the worst thing they’ve regularly done. They are literally evil incarnate.

        Hamas is not as bad but that’s really not saying much. They still actively want to commit genocide. ANYONE who openly calls for genocide is a piece of shit in my book.

        • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          You see, I agreed with your first section. But given your 2nd section, now I question the 1st as well. Hamas does not want to genocide anybody except the people genociding them. Which is an extremely obvious reaction to genocide. Jews wanted to kill all Nazis, were the jews calling for genocide? Would you have both sides the victims of the Holocaust like you are the victims of the current genocide?

          I’m pretty sure your 1st section is still correct, but when you’re right about stuff, don’t follow it up with bullshit, it just brings the rest into question.

      • athos77@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        does that imply that ISIS was actually the good guys?

        For me, it comes down to how much damage the group does to the people under it’s control. ISIS and the Taliban seem to be rather brutal and repressive to the civilians, especially women: women must wear Islamic clothes, can’t go to school for long, can’t go out alone, etc etc. Admittedly I’m less familiar with Hamas, but I just haven’t seen stories of that kind of brutality from them.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        No no, man. Hamas is morally grey. ISIS is just bad. Like “gets declared kaffir by other Muslims” bad.

        If Hamas is the IRA during the troubles, ISIS is the Wehrmacht.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        ISIS and Hamas are entirely different.

        If anything ISIS seems like an israeli proxy created to destabilize other countries in the region and attack their government. ISIS never attacks israel. And recently they attacked Iran instead of israel which is very questionable.

        And ISIS treats their soldiers in israel… and receives money from israel…-.

        Hamas is not interested in attacking other countries or expanding their Lebensraum. Hamas is very comparable with the ANC in South Africa, or the IRA in the UK. Their people were oppressed and they started asking for their rights a little less nicely.