- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Sattwik Biswal
SHAMIMA BEGUM still remains at the al-Roj camp in northern Syria with her British citizenship stripped, and in a latest interview for a documentary says she does not need to be rehabilitated.
She said she would rather ‘love’ to help rehabilitate others.
During the interview with journalist Andrew Drury, she was again seen in western clothes – wearing a leather Nike baseball cap and skinny jeans. She also had her fingernails painted red and was holding on to a fashionable clutch bag.
When Begum was 15, she had left Britain along with two other Bethnal Green schoolgirls to join Daesh (Islamic State group) in 2015.
“I don’t think I was a terrorist. I think I was just a dumb kid who made one mistake.
“I personally don’t think that I need to be rehabilitated, but I would want to help other people be rehabilitated. I would love to help,” she tells Drury who was visiting the camp for the interview.
Why has she stopped wearing hijab and traditional dresses. “I wear these clothes, and I don’t wear a hijab, because it makes me happy. And anything in this camp that makes me happy is like a lifesaver,” she said.
She added that she liked rapper Kanye West’s music, was following news of his divorce from reality TV star Kim Kardashian and watched re-runs of Friends in the camp.
Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled on national security grounds that she cannot return to Britain to appeal against the removal of her citizenship in 2019.
Drury, interviewing her for a film called Danger Zone, said meeting her had changed his mind about her being a terrorist.
In an earlier interview for the documentary, The Return: Life After ISIS, she had said that the UK government was wrong to remove her citizenship on the basis of radical Islam, and fearing her safety in the camp she restrained herself from condemning Daesh in her much earlier media interactions.
Begum said she and her friends were recruited by Daesh online, who preyed on their guilt at seeing muslims suffering in Syria.
“It was the holidays when I decided to leave with my friends,” she was quoted as saying.
“I knew it was a big decision, but I just felt compelled to do it quickly. I didn’t want to be the friend that was left behind.”
“My mum didn’t see me walking outside of the door. I didn’t hug her, I really regret not hugging her,” she added.
The schoolgirls with whom she fled to Syria – Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana were both killed in the city of Baghuz.
Begum lost two of her children while trying to flee the last-held territory of Daesh. Her third child died shortly after she gave birth to him in the Syrian camp.
“I just really wanted to kill myself, I felt I couldn’t get up anymore, I couldn’t even get up to run when there were bombings. The only thing keeping me alive was my baby that I was pregnant with.”
Lastly, when Drury asked what she would say to those in the UK who do not want her to return, Begum said: “Can I come home please, pretty please?”
