Mercy or Mugs? Is it Un-Christian To Revoke Shamima Begum’s Citizenship?
Since the above interview was aired, Shamima Begum’s baby has died.
The mother of Shamima Begum has urged the government to reconsider the decision to revoke her daughter’s British citizenship.
A letter to the Home Office from the family’s lawyer – written on behalf of Asma Begum – asked the Home Office to do so as “an act of mercy”.
It said this was in light of the news the teenager’s newborn son had died last week. Ms Begum left London to join the Islamic State group when she was 15.
When she was found in a Syrian refugee camp last month, she gave an interview in which she said did not regret joining IS. Click here to read entire BBC report
Comment:
Do Christian charity and mercy apply here? Should this young woman, who has lost three children since she left the UK to join IS, be allowed back into the UK, given the circumstances of her life now in war-torn Syria? Or would that make “mugs” of the Government and peoples of the UK?
Is there a right and a wrong way to deal with this situation? Note that Shamima says in the above interview that she really only became interested in religion before she left for Syria (when she was fifteen). She’s not expressed regret or repentance, and, in fact, horrified us all by saying (in another widely televised interview) that she was unfazed at the sight of heads in bins, but maybe her ability in English lessons was as impoverished as her religious education – maybe she just doesn’t know how to find the words to express regret. Or am I clutching at straws?
The one question that nobody has raised however, not any of the news interviewers or commentators is this: why on earth does she want to return to the UK when Islamic State seeks to destroy the west. I don’t get it. Do you?
Comments (7)
The Government has a duty of care towards the general population which means it cannot knowingly allow dangerous extremists to enter the country.
There would of course be a case for charity, had the individual concerned expressed regret and repudiated her views. There is much she could have done to make amends, such as use her experiences to work against radicalisation for example.
Instead however, she said she regrets nothing, she blamed others for being the cause of islamic atrocities* and she even attempted to justify a terror attack on teenage girls attending a pop concert (the Manchester bombing).
(*she justified a man – likely a syrian or kurdish soldier, an enemy of ISIS anyway – being beheaded, on grounds that what he *might* have done to women aligned with ISIS, given the chance. This was her only response to seeing his severed head in a basket).
In short, she is a walking fountain of all the usual perverted rubbish which extremist muslims use to justify their violence and intolerance.
Lets not forget, people like Shamima hate the freedoms and values which typify the UK and prefer to live under a murderous dictatorship. They prefer harsh, totalitarian regimes where non-muslims (or insufficiently pious muslims) are lower than dirt. These are people who take their moral lead from a war-mongering paedophile, who created a false religion in order to glorify himself and justify his various excesses.
The real tragedy here is not the fate of Shamima Begum, but that of her deceased infant children. Ultimately their fate is Shamimas fault, not that of the British Government.
It would be a massive failure for the Government to admit Shamima Begum, having refused sanctuary to Asia Bibi, the innocent Christian woman persecuted by Shamima’s co-religionists in Pakistan.
That people like Shamima are in the British Muslim community concerns me, however I am encouraged that most British Muslims seem to agree with, or at least respect, this decision. How apt that it is been made by Sajid Javid MP, a muslim Home Secretary.
It would be unthinkable to re-admit her to the country. The extremist capacity for self-pity and self-delusion would likely lead her to be a resentful and disenfranchised individual, one who would be likely to become involved in extremism again.
I take no pleasure in saying it, but extremist muslims are savages – as they repeatedly remind us with their atrocities.
That is what should be foremost in our mind in this discussion about whether such people are fit to enter our society. Just as we would remember that a hungry Lion is a wild animal and fierce predator, when pondering whether we should release one into the local kids playground. In both cases, the results are wholly predictable.
Gabriel Syme,
I think her lack of regret is truly incredible. She hasn’t even got the sense (as one commentator pointed out) to feign regret for the purpose of getting back to the UK! Not that I’m encouraging dishonesty! Still… 😀
Editor,
it is an interesting point – while we would not condone dishonesty, my understanding is that Islam explicitly permits its adherents to be dishonest with non-muslims.
Indeed, they refer to “Allah” as “the great deceiver” .
In any case, they certainly have some very skewed ideas about God and morality, that’s for sure.
One point – the Government stopped the persecuted Christian Asia Bibi from gaining asylum in this country because it might cause ‘social unrest’ (i.e. Islamists would go on the rampage) – but are they concerned about the social unrest that might be caused by allowing this woman back into the country? I doubt it. I think they are more concerned about muslim sensibilities than keeping British citizens safe.
WF,
Thank you for that reminder about Asia Bibi – that seals it for me, not that I had much doubt about revoking Shamima Begum’s citizenship but, you are right, the Government was more worried about Muslim reaction to giving Asia Bibi asylum than doing the right thing and there was very little through to zero discussion of that case on any of the usual chatterbox shows.
So, well spotted!
The death of her babies is indeed tragic, but who asked the 15 year-old ‘Shamima Bubblegum’ to venture out to Syria in the first place? Did she think she was going there for a picnic?
I say it was the correct decision to revoke her British Citizenship. Trust the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott to stir the political u-kno-wot over anything like this.
I absolutely object to the possibility of restoring her citizenship. She is a potential danger to people in the UK.
It’s not a defence to say she was only 15 when she went out to Syria. 15 year olds these days are very savvy indeed. She knew what she was doing and she says that the propaganda videos inspired her, so that makes her a very real danger. No way should she get back here.
I don’t see why she doesn’t want to go to Holland to live with her husband – or was she going to wait to get back here and then get him into the country as well, as her husband? She’s savvy enough to know that her baby would be cared for in the NHS so she probably knows that her unemployed husband would get welfare payments. It’s such a nerve to go off to join a terrorist group which aims to destroy western societies and then, when it fails, come back to live off the welfare state. I am just amazed that anyone supports her request to come back, I really am.
It’s a terrifying idea, to be actually importing known terrorists. She says she didn’t do anything dangerous – how do we know that? If she could look at people’s beheaded heads lying in bins and shrug her shoulders, and say she was OK with it, she wouldn’t think twice about being violent, IMHO.
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