Has anyone watched the 90 minute BBC documentary on Shamima Begum?

No, I'll go and have a look for that, thankyou.

I've long felt sorry for her situation, as someone who was groomed and maybe trafficked at 15.

She is becoming a celebrity. She's been on the cover of The Times magazine. Next stop Big Brother maybe.

Nice to read of an open mind🙂.

My opinion is and has always been that she was groomed. What she did was wrong and she should be made to recognise that.

She is a British citizen and we should deal with our own. Provided it isn’t Bravermans law.

I've seen her interviewed several times. She is British when it suits her and when she's in trouble. My opinion only if course.

90 minutes is too long Urmston! That's not to say I don't have a certain sympathy for her. Bearing in mind she was 15, this is not the age of wisdom for most of us. In all sorts of contexts, young people make catastrophic decisions whilst "in the moment" of being swept along with crazy ideas when they are at their most susceptible. Lacking foresight can have a devastating effect, as this young woman has found out. I imagine she's matured and had to grow up very quickly through the many horrible experiences she's already had. I'm inclined to agree she should be brought back here.

I agree Urmstongran. It was a balanced and insightful programme. It has changed how I feel about her, too. I am very glad that stupid decisions I took at fifteen didn't come back to haunt me in the way that hers have. As an aside, I did not warm to her husband at all, but am I right in saying that under the law in which they were married, she is not able to divorce him, only he her?

Actually the 90 minutes passed really quickly. I thought ‘hmm, give this 10 minutes or so, see what all the fuss is about” and found myself engrossed. It was filmed over the course of a year. Her Dutch husband is a nasty piece of work. A ‘safe ISIS house’ where Shamima stayed with an Egyptian man & his family while her husband was in prison, was a place where an electrician had done some work. He doubted the veracity of some of Shamima’s accounts from her time there.

As I say, I found it an illuminating documentary.

Crossed posts Urmstongran! Someone else who thought the husband was deeply unpleasant!

I admire your honesty in saying you’ve changed your mind “Urms*. Many wouldn’t, or are so entrenched in their opinion they wouldn’t read/watch what didn’t conform to those views.

I watched the interview and there was a marked contrast between the 15 year old we saw setting off for Syria, and the woman she is today.
I guess this would be similar to all of us at 15.

I have always believed that stripping her of UK citizenship was unlawful, and she should be brought back to face trial here.

I found the interview quite insightful and I share some of your opinions but think it raised more questions than it answered.

googled:

:In Islam, a woman who wishes to terminate her marriage contract without the consent of her husband must do so by applying to the Shariah Council. This type of divorce is commonly referred to what is known as a Khula." (however no idea if its easy in practice!)

I didn't see the TV documentary but did listen to the series on R4.
I think she should be allowed to have British Citizenship and be tried in this country.
Because she was 15 and I believe she was groomed.

Because I do not believe her to be a danger, although I'm sure that boundaries would be laid down.

Teenagers do not understand the concept of risk. Everything is a big adventure, that is why they so often get themselves into trouble. Thankfully not so catastrophic as that young woman.

I listened to it on R4.
To be a good lier you have to have a good memory. She tripped herself up several times
One of her boopers. She claimed that she had never seen jihadi
John. Further on ( in the interview ) she was describing an incident where she claimed the man was jihadi John.
Interviewer asked her how she knew it was jihadi John: she answered: I recognised him from his height and eyes.
No sympathy whatsoever. That’s putting my opinion politely.

I think she is our responsibility to sort out whatever the outcome. I haven’t seen the programme but have always believed this. Withdrawal of citizenship just pushes this to somewhere else.

I haven't watched it but I've heard a couple of the podcasts and intend to hear them all and watch the programme. She should be allowed back in the UK and face trial here. I believe she, along with her two friends, was groomed by ISIS and led into a situation where she was basically "prostituted". A friend who she was quite close to, had already joined ISIS and she fed the three girls a lot of lies which strongly influenced their decision. I can't begin to imagine what it would have been like for them once they were there, pretty horrific with no chance to return home and an awareness that they had to do as they were told or suffer the consequences. She's not a young woman who engenders sympathy but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be treated fairly and with some humanity.

I have also started to change my mind about SB but to be honest I then started to change it back again after watching this programme.

The shirt open to below cleavage, the manipulative manner and, in my opinion, obvious lying in parts. This was given away by the rapid blinking and swallowing at times.

I think we’re being taken for fools but, ultimately, she can’t be left in that camp forever. I do wonder who’s paying for her legal team, clothes etc?

As long as she’s no threat to British citizens in the future but is she?

If she comes back to the UK she will have to be watched for a long time for the safety of the British public and Shemima herself. Man power is thin on the ground thanks to cuts so we may not have the resources to be able to do this.
She may not get a custodial sentence so could be out to live a quiet life or hook up with others who may not have her or our best interests at heart.

I should imagine the security services will keep a close watch on her for many years, if she does come back.
Which should happen, IMO. Then, if found guilty of breaking the law she should be dealt with appropriately, in a British court.
I am still troubled by the ease with which she was stripped of her British citizenship and do not believe this was entirely legal. My own brother was born in a muslim country where we were living at the time -- he's an upstanding citizen but in the unlikely event that he fell foul of the law could the same happen to him?
(And he could claim dual nationality if he wished. I'm not sure Shamina could, she wasn't even born in Bangladesh)

in an interview she stated that she saw bins with heads of the beheaded in them and it didn't faze her.
that is a sick person...

there was a similar interview on This morning on ?Monday and this female was also groomed by ISIS but I found she contradicted herself as she said initially she was estranged from family and friends and was then influended online -and at end of interview she said she had support from family/friends? Hm m wasn't impressed felt she wasn't genuine -hope i'm wrong ..

I saw the documentary. It was good, and I didn't change my mind - I felt that she was groomed and in any case too 15 is too young for anyone to be held responsible for a stupid decision for the rest of her life.

She isn't very likeable, but that shouldn't be a good reason to deny her citizenship. There is no way of knowing whether she is traumatised by what happened to her (she was married off to an abusive husband, sent to live with a man known to the authorities for being violent whilst her husband was in a toture jail, and had five pregnancies, two miscarriages and three dead babies), and I don't think that she would get a fair trial anyway - it would make more sense to have her case put before a panel of experts, such as psychologists and agents specialising in terrorism.

The longer she is denied entry to the UK, the older she will be (obviously!) and the more likely it is that she will be 'got at' in the camps, whether that is to attack her or recruit her to the cause again, if she left it as she says.

I did watch it and I feel extremely sorry for her ( as I always have) she made a stupid decision at 15 (we probably all have although not nearly as extreme of course) She was carried along with excitement probably feeling she didn’t fit in here and at 15 it would have seemed a big old adventure with her friends
She has had more heartache (losing her three children an abusive husband and life in refugee camps) in her short life than most of us have in a lifetime
She obviously doesn’t have a personality that cry’s and weeps and shows emotion and that’s how she’s managed but she is in distress never the less I don’t think for a minute she is a bad person a misguided and sad one without an ounce of hope
She should never have had her citizenship stripped from her it should be reinstated and we need to look after our own problems
I feel very sorry for her

I did wonder about the effect her Western dress - red nail polish, vest tee, baseball cap - was having on the other burka clad inmates in the camp. I thought she’d be targeted? Perhaps she is too high profile for such ramifications now? I know when she was first in the camp, holding her new born son, she was wary of saying ‘the wrong thing’ in front of the cameras. There was, in those early days, a burka clad woman (? enforcer) alongside her. No longer. I wonder why?

Agree with you Bluebelle. What amazes me is that the English girls from Bradford are considered groomed victims- and not Shemima. She was the same age. I imagine if some of the Bradford girls, now women, were interviewed on TV, some of them would not sound 'too good'!

15 is a child she was exploited and whatever happened since we need to remember that! If it was our daughter or DGD age 15 would we want them vilified?