Shamima Begum: IS teen's return to UK 'could be prevented'

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Source: BBC

Shamima Begum: IS teen's return to UK 'could be prevented'

15 February 2019

A British woman who fled to Syria as a schoolgirl to join the Islamic State group could be prevented from returning to the UK, the home secretary has said.

"My message is clear," Sajid Javid told the Times: "If you have supported terrorist organisations abroad I will not hesitate to prevent your return."

He added that if Shamima Begum, 19, did come home she could be prosecuted.

Ms Begum, who is pregnant, told the paper she had no regrets but wanted to have her baby in the UK.

"We must remember that those who left Britain to join Daesh were full of hate for our country," Mr Javid said.

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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47248555


Ms Begum was 15 and living in Bethnal Green, London, when she left the UK in 2015

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1. George Osborne says UK government must let runaway ISIS teen return home

Source: CNBC

George Osborne says UK government must let runaway ISIS teen return home

• Shamima Begum who traveled to Syria to join ISIS when she in 2015 has been found in a refugee camp in northern Syria.
• The now 19-year-old says she wants to return to London but has so far expressed little remorse for leaving.
• The current U.K. Home Secretary has suggested he will refuse her entry back into the country.

David Reid
Published 7 Hours Ago Updated 5 Hours Ago

The former finance minister of the United Kingdom told CNBC that the runaway schoolgirl who left Britain to join the so-called Islamic State should be allowed to return to the country.

Shamima Begum who traveled to Syria when she was 15 has been found in a refugee camp in northern Syria. Now 19, Begum is also heavily pregnant. In an interview carried out in the camp, Begum said she did not regret joining ISIS.

Adopting a tough tone Friday, the U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid said those who left the U.K. to join ISIS were "full of hate for our country" and that he "will not hesitate" to prevent the return of Britons who join the terror group.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference Saturday, former U.K. Finance Minister George Osborne told CNBC's Hadley Gamble that the government should allow Begum to return.

"I don't think it is possible for Britain to say this is all someone else's problem (and that) we are going to leave them in some other part of the world or not allow them to enter the U.K.," he said.

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Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/16/shamima-begum-george-osborne-says-isis-teen-should-be-allowed-back-in-uk.html

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2. Let Shamima Begum return to UK or risk more terror recruits, says expert

Source: The Observer

Let Shamima Begum return to UK or risk more terror recruits, says expert

Counter-radicalisation expert criticises Sajid Javid’s reaction, saying it feeds Isis narrative

Mark Townsend, Jamie Doward, Daniel Boffey and Nosheen Iqbal
Sat 16 Feb 2019 17.36 GMT

The home secretary’s response to teenage Islamic State bride Shamima Begum will guarantee new recruits to the ideology that underpins the terror group, a former senior counter-radicalisation expert for the government has warned.

As the debate over whether to allow Begum, who left the UK to join Islamic State as a 15-year-old, to return home continued on Saturday, Hanif Qadir said Sajid Javid’s reaction to the teenager’s predicament fed the narrative of Isis.

On Friday Javid said he “would not hesitate” to prevent the return of UK Isis recruits, an approach at odds with Begum’s family in Bethnal Green, east London, who want the 19-year-old to return home “as a matter of urgency”.

Qadir, a senior expert with the government’s counter-extremism Prevent programme and whose cases included raising the alarm about a group of schoolgirls who planned to join Isis in Syria, said: “Javid is fuelling the (Isis) narrative and giving wind to the sails of other extremists. If we continue with this trajectory we’ll be sowing the narrative for them to reap and use against us.”

Qadir, whose charity Active Change Foundation was supported by police and worked with high-profile extremists until 2016, said the home secretary’s emphatic response would backfire. “If the government doesn’t change their approach to this, we potentially have a second wave of Isis coming, the connecting up and reloading of Isis, fence-sitters who are more sympathetic to another kind of narrative,” he said.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/16/shamima-begum-isis-extremism-expert-criticises-sajid-javid