Skip to content 
Search

Latest Stories

Teen’s return plea sparks terror support debate

by Amit Roy

THE one question that has not been asked about Shamima Begum is how her return to the UK would impact the British-Asian community in general and Bangladeshis, in particular. Would the harassment British Muslims suffer increase or decrease if she were to come back?


There are some politicians who say her return cannot be blocked because the UK cannot make her stateless. But the home secretary Sajid Javid has declared: “My message

is clear – if you have supported terrorist organisations abroad, I will not hesitate to prevent your return.”

Shamima, who was 15 when she “married” Yago Riedijk, a Dutch Daesh (Islamic State) fighter, three weeks after arriving in Syria, says she “wouldn’t have found someone like him back in the UK”. She adds that she doesn’t regret going in the first place because “it’s made me stronger, tougher”; when she saw her first decapitated head in a bin, it

“didn’t faze me at all”; and she knew Daesh were conducting executions, but she was “ok with it, at first”.

She is now 19 and just given birth to a son after two children failed to survive. She claims she was “just a wife” and that the security services have nothing on her since she did

not do anything “dangerous”. All things considered, she reckons she had “a good time”.

Antony Lloyd, of The Times, the reporter who interviewed her in a refugee camp, has shown remarkable generosity by arguing: “She was a 15-year-old schoolgirl who made

a terrible mistake... and we must do our best to rehabilitate her among our own people.”

Public opinion appears to be more in tune with Reg Henning, whose brother, Alan, a British aid worker, was beheaded by “Jihadi John”. He is emphatic she should “absolutely not” be allowed back.

Shamima’s family naturally want her back though they had no clue what she was up to when she fled to Syria in February 2015, with two other girls, Kadiza Sultana and

Amira Abase, from Bethnal Green Academy. They were reportedly following in the footsteps of another girl, Sharmeena Begum, from the same school, who travelled to Syria in December 2014.

Mohammed Shafiq, head of antiextremism charity the Ramadhan Foundation, said he was “deeply disturbed” by Shamima’s attempts to “normalise” Daesh.

“Nothing in what they did was good and they are enemies of Islam and Muslims”, he said.

That is the point.

The chances are when Shamima is allowed to return – as she probably will be – she will be held for a few weeks or months and then will begin to live the life of a “celebrity” which she undoubtedly will become.

There is so much interest in her story that she will become a regular guest on TV shows. Perhaps there will be a lucrative book deal. By and by, she will become a kind of spokeswoman for her brand of Islam.

As she has said, she is no longer “the silly girl” who ran away four years ago. Lots of impressionable young pupils at Bethnal Green Academy and elsewhere will look up to her and want to emulate her in some way.

Is that what families like that of Shamima want?

And with her as a mother, what kind of young man will her son grow up to be?

Shamima is not the only moral dilemma facing the government.

As US president Donald Trump reminded Britain and other western allies last Sunday (17), there are 800 ‘jihadi’ prisoners in Syria to take back.

More For You

Comment: Last summer’s riots could erupt again without sustained action on cohesion

FILE PHOTO: Riot police hold back protesters near a burning police vehicle in Southport, England

Getty Images

Comment: Last summer’s riots could erupt again without sustained action on cohesion

Could this long, hot summer see violence like last year’s riots erupt again? It surely could. That may depend on some trigger event – though the way in which the tragic murders of Southport were used to mobilise inchoate rage, targeting asylum seekers and Muslims, showed how tenuous such a link can be. There has already been unrest again in Ballymena this summer. Northern Ireland saw more sustained violence, yet fewer prosecutions than anywhere in England last summer.

"We must not wait for more riots to happen" says Kelly Fowler, director of Belong, who co-publish a new report, ‘The State of Us’, this week with British Future. The new research provides a sober and authoritative guide to the condition of cohesion in Britain. A cocktail of economic pessimism, declining trust in institutions and the febrile tinderbox of social media present major challenges. Trust in political institutions has rarely been lower – yet there is public frustration too with an angry politics which amplifies division.

Keep ReadingShow less
The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn

Getty Images

The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

It is a truth universally acknowledged that voters are dissatisfied with the political choices on offer - so must they be in want of new parties too? A proliferation of start-ups showed how tricky political match-making can be. Zarah Sultana took Jeremy Corbyn by surprise by announcing they will co-lead a new left party. Two of Nigel Farage’s exes announced separate political initiatives to challenge Reform from its right, with the leader of London’s Conservatives lending her voice to Rupert Lowe’s revival of the politics of repatriation.

Corbyn and Sultana are from different generations. He had been an MP for a decade by the time she was born. For Sultana’s allies, this intergenerational element is a core case for the joint leadership. But the communications clash suggests friction ahead. After his allies could not persuade Sultana to retract her announcement, Corbyn welcomed her decision to leave Labour, saying ‘negotiations continue’ over the structure and leadership of a new party. It will seek to link MPs elected as pro-Gaza independents with other strands of the left outside Labour.

Keep ReadingShow less
Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

Amol Rajan at Prayagraj

Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

ONE reason I watched the BBC documentary Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges with particular interest was because I have been wondering what to do with the ashes of my uncle, who died in August last year. His funeral, like that of his wife, was half Christian and half Hindu, as he had wished. But he left no instructions about his ashes.

Sooner or later, this is a question that every Hindu family in the UK will have to face, since it has been more than half a century since the first generation of Indian immigrants began arriving in this country. Amol admits he found it difficult to cope with the loss of his father, who died aged 76 three years ago. His ashes were scattered in the Thames.

Keep ReadingShow less
One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Sir Keir Starmer

Getty Images

One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Do not expect any parties in Downing Street to celebrate the government’s first birthday on Friday (4). After a rocky year, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer had more than a few regrets when giving interviews about his first year in office.

He explained that he chose the wrong chief of staff. That his opening economic narrative was too gloomy. That choosing the winter fuel allowance as a symbol of fiscal responsibility backfired. Starmer ‘deeply regretted’ the speech he gave to launch his immigration white paper, from which only the phrase ‘island of strangers’ cut through. Can any previous political leader have been quite so self-critical of their own record in real time?

Keep ReadingShow less
starmer-bangladesh-migration
Sir Keir Starmer
Getty Images

Comment: Can Starmer turn Windrush promises into policy?

Anniversaries can catalyse action. The government appointed the first Windrush Commissioner last week, shortly before Windrush Day, this year marking the 77th anniversary of the ship’s arrival in Britain.

The Windrush generation came to Britain believing what the law said – that they were British subjects, with equal rights in the mother country. But they were to discover a different reality – not just in the 1950s, but in this century too. It is five years since Wendy Williams proposed this external oversight in her review of the lessons of the Windrush scandal. The delay has damaged confidence in the compensation scheme. Williams’ proposal had been for a broader Migrants Commissioner role, since the change needed in Home Office culture went beyond the treatment of the Windrush generation itself.

Keep ReadingShow less