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

The time and place to hear her story is in court not in a sympathetic TV interview.

Except I didn’t find the tv interview overly sympathetic Aveline. Searching questions were asked. Witnesses were produced who questioned Shamina’s perceptions.

Quite honestly I was impressed by the programme.
More so, I think, because I wasn’t expecting to be.

I watched it and it just confirmed my belief that she was a naive and vulnerable girl who was groomed. I never did agree with her losing her British citizenship. She may be unlikeable, but I do think she should be brought back and dealt with in our courts.

A loose cannon in a very unstable country. If she was groomed what could she be groomed to do next? If not groomed does she hold a grudge against Britain? Might she persuade others?
What I ask is where is her father in all this the last I heard was keeping out of it all in Bangladesh.Odd behaviour for a father,

The whole thing left me feeling extremely sad. Part of me is in the, ‘You’ve made your bed, now lie on it’ camp but would she really pose a threat to national security if she had her citizenship reinstated and returned to face trial?

Having said that I think the interview was too soft. She was clearly upset at the sight of her dead friend’s body after the bombing but completely unfazed by decapitated heads in bins. We’d have learned more about her if she had been pushed harder for accountability.

She has no future but then does she deserve one?

what happened to the other 2 girls she left uk with?

metlotgran I would think the girls emotions are completely deadened in her need to exist I think she looked completely dead behind her eyes Everyone deals with dreadful things in the only way they know I ve heard of funeral directors joking together the same for any difficult emotional situations some people can’t cry or find words to soften it and others see them as hard hearted it’s often the only way they can exist

Everyone deserves a future

We give child murderers like Mary Smith and the Jamie Bulger killers a new identity and a new start sometimes it works sometimes, it doesn’t but they GET the chance

* Welbeck* I think they are both dead and the girl that converted her is still with Isis

I find her chilling.
There is an emotional deadness and lack of remorse which I feel was always part of her personality , enabling her to steal from and betray her family. She is colluding in the grooming that is clearly taking place now (but by whom?) to get her back to England, in exactly the same way she welcomed it when she wanted to leave, aged fifteen.
The interview was not nearly probing enough.
She will return, I am sure, but I hope the authorities keep a close watch on her for a long time.

BlueBelle

metlotgran I would think the girls emotions are completely deadened in her need to exist I think she looked completely dead behind her eyes Everyone deals with dreadful things in the only way they know I ve heard of funeral directors joking together the same for any difficult emotional situations some people can’t cry or find words to soften it and others see them as hard hearted it’s often the only way they can exist

Everyone deserves a future

We give child murderers like Mary Smith and the Jamie Bulger killers a new identity and a new start sometimes it works sometimes, it doesn’t but they GET the chance

I agree with all of this.

It's what I was getting at when I said she could be traumatised. The chances are she has been hiding her emotions for years now, and will have been watching every word.

I also agree that everyone deserves a future, and she was a child when she left the UK. Letting her grow up in a camp and then complaining that she is older now makes no sense to me - it's like waiting for a young criminal to reach 18 to put them to death.

And yes - Mary Bell has never reoffended, and the James Bolger killers were a 50/50 success rate. We don't know that Shamima Begum killed anyone (as a woman she probably didn't) so why ca't she be given the same chance as they got?

I think it's possible that one day her citizenship will be restored and she will be brought back to immdiately stand trial in a magistrates' court where she will be remanded in custody to await trial (for treason?) at a later date. She won't have an easy time in prison, so will she even want to come back to this country?

Everyone deserves a future

But what if it’s snatched away from them?

Shamima Begum may have made an immature and unwise decision at the age of 15 but her future was in her hands.

Unlike the young victims of the Manchester bombing.

Unlike the young victims of the Manchester bombing.

Very true *Merlotgran^.
One would have to assume such statements would be put to her in a Court of Law?

She would be confronted by her lifestyle choices.

But the point of my OP wasn’t just for opinions already formed about SB.

It was asking “have you watched the documentary and if so, what did you think?”.

But she wasn't responsible for the Manchester bombing.

Urmstongran, I thought the programme was interesting, and that she came across slightly better than in previous interviews I've seen.

I did wonder whether the journalist was hinting that there is more to the story than we know, particularly in the bits about the man she lived with when her husband was in jail, but I don't know.

If you aren't interested in what people think about SB, what is it about the programme that you want to know our opinions on?

She doesn’t do herself any favours but I try to remember that she was just a child - the same age as my granddaughter is now.

I think Doodledog that over the years there have in fact been a few threads about SB. I just wondered, in the light of the recent documentary, whether it had prompted any change of opinion. It did for me so I was curious.

I really felt for her. She was a fifteen year-old, setting off for an escape from her life in Bethnal Green, preceded and encouraged by her best friend and accompanied by her two teenaged friends.

She got so much more than she bargained for, certainly not the freedom she had expected. She married an abusive, fanatical man, had three babies in rapid succession, all of whom lived only briefly.

I’m sure she has come away from those experiences damaged, traumatised and conflicted. She’s had to be shrewd, to learn to survive against all odds, still young, still speaks in the idiom of her east-end roots. But I saw an intelligent girl who shouldn’t be left to rot and grow more bitter in that camp.

My feeling throughout was “poor girl”.

She does have a future. She's not dead, she's just not in the UK.

Delila

I really felt for her. She was a fifteen year-old, setting off for an escape from her life in Bethnal Green, preceded and encouraged by her best friend and accompanied by her two teenaged friends.

She got so much more than she bargained for, certainly not the freedom she had expected. She married an abusive, fanatical man, had three babies in rapid succession, all of whom lived only briefly.

I’m sure she has come away from those experiences damaged, traumatised and conflicted. She’s had to be shrewd, to learn to survive against all odds, still young, still speaks in the idiom of her east-end roots. But I saw an intelligent girl who shouldn’t be left to rot and grow more bitter in that camp.

My feeling throughout was “poor girl”.

The documentary made me think a lot about her situation, and I feel on balance more inclined to agree with your compassionate view of her. Of course we cannot really judge from a documentary and interview, but I feel it is right that she should return to the U.K. and answer in court for what she did.

Condemnation by social media and tabloids is not a fair way to treat her imo.

she didn't care about the heads in the buckets because they were of infidels, or enemies of isis, so it was justified in her view, so that was ok.
whereas her friend was one of their own, so she was sad.
totally self-serving. no empathy. no morality.
it's not her i feel sorry for but all the victims of isis.

Do you believe she really didn’t care Welbeck? I don’t.

I think in that environment she was probably scared to show she cared. She knew she was being judged, not least by her ISIS fighter husband. Who she admits assaulted her.

He was asked in the documentary “have you seen Shamima since you were arrested? Would you be with her again if you could?”
“Of course - she is my wife” was his replay.

When Shamima was asked whether she would go back to her husband if she could, she replied “no way, I don’t need his crap”.

It was very telling those girls who went out to Syria could only leave the smelly, disgusting Centre that housed over 100 girls and women if they agreed to marry one of the ‘freedom fighters’. That meant of course that they were completely under the ruling of said male. Could only be out in public with him etc.

Have to speculate why she thought all this subjugation was better than a life in Bethnal Green....

I think she expected adventure and romance with dashing superheroes - she was fifteen. Bethnal Green couldn’t compare.

she was asked about the severed heads by western journalist, after the fall of isis, when in the camp.
her reaction was v telling, before she been coached in what to say, how to make the right impression.

Given time to reflect on those earliest comments made when she was still influenced by, and surrounded by, extremist ideology, I would expect her to experience some quite fundamental changes, not necessarily brought about by coaching.