The Off Topic Topic

[Tamas]

It's ok though, I am not married to the idea. I concede that it was baseless of me to assume she has no desire to actively integrate into British society.

[The Larch]

It's ok though, I am not married to the idea. I concede that it was baseless of me to assume she has no desire to actively integrate into British society.

Sincerely, who knows what must be going through her mind. I'm sure that at he moment she just wants to get the hell out of the refugee camp she's at and get somewhere where her kid can be taken care of. I doubt she's doing deep philosophical reflections about the duties of citizenship.

[derspiess]

I apologise for having unfounded negative assumptions about an ISIS supporter.

SHAME

[garbon]

If you don't see the issue...it's worrisome. For somebody who has expressed worry about the rise of xenophobia in the UK after Brexit and how it can affect you and others to so gratuituosly drop a xenophobic jab as if it's no big deal shows you're not exactly free of sin either. There's plenty of ammunition to be lobbed at this person without having to resort to an accusation that has been aimed at inmigrants for ages. Attack her for her sympathy to ISIS and terrorism all day long, but there's no need to go piling accusations of exploiting welfare on top.

She is not an immigrant.

I said it's an accusation that has been aimed at inmigrants, not that she herself is one.

Edit: To be precise, if there's a need for labeling, she'd be what in Germanic countries call "person with foreign background", or somesuch. A 2nd generation inmigrant, if you wish, although that's not a label I'm super comfortable with. In my book, if you're a citizen, you're a citizen, no matter if your family has been in the country for generations or you just got the papers.

As dps said, it isn't welfare. And before she realized that it harmed her case, her first interview made it pretty clear that she didn't regret going to support ISIS but wanted to make sure her kid got the best care (after one or two of her other kids died).

[garbon]

By the way, I think the proper thing to do was the initial British response. No we are not sending people to come rescue you though if you make it to a place where we have consular staff (Iraq, Turkey), we will get you home. Of course, understand you may face trial.

[Tamas]

By the way, I think the proper thing to do was the initial British response. No we are not sending people to come rescue you though if you make it to a place where we have consular staff (Iraq, Turkey), we will get you home. Of course, understand you may face trial.

Indeed.

[frunk]

The whole issue seems goofy to me.  Did she commit crimes?  Prosecute her for them.  Removal of citizenship should be for when the person became a citizen under false pretenses, not just as an extra punishment reserved for someone who could gain citizenship somewhere else. 

[mongers]

By the way, I think the proper thing to do was the initial British response. No we are not sending people to come rescue you though if you make it to a place where we have consular staff (Iraq, Turkey), we will get you home. Of course, understand you may face trial.

Yes.

And she and others like here should be treated with extreme caution, given how the Chechen widows behaved.

[The Larch]

By the way, I think the proper thing to do was the initial British response. No we are not sending people to come rescue you though if you make it to a place where we have consular staff (Iraq, Turkey), we will get you home. Of course, understand you may face trial.

Yup, that'd have been fair.

[Tamas]

The police officers participating in this apprehension of a convict escaping from his trial at court got a medal:
https://youtu.be/rBT1E6hNJsY

I am not exactly certain why.

You can see the guy taking the court guard hostage.
Next CCTV shows him running with his leg-cuff still on one of his legs, with policemen in tow.
He stops a Mercedes with the gun he has.
This was a wrong choice though, as the driver seems to be one of his colleagues and actually fights him. The police officers watch to see who wins.
Convict gets out of the driver's hold and "runs" on. At this point he doesn't stop to the warning shot and gets shot down by the officers.
He receives 7 hit (survives). 2 civilian cars get hit as well.


I mean... They can't catch up with a guy with a cuff on his leg. Then they stand and wait while a civilian is in a life-death struggle with an armed attacker. Once said civilian successfully makes the perpetrator flee, they wait until he is in the smack middle of a bunch of civilian cars and start emptying their magazines into him.

So on this one, every official person has received a medal, including the court guard whose only role was to let his gun be taken and then be taken hostage in the building.

The civilian who fought the convict instead of surrendering his car (he did this BTW because his sister was in the car), didn't get one. He got condemned by the police for resisting instead of complying with the criminal.

[fromtia]

I've been following the Shamima Begum case as it blazes across facebook today. In general I agree with what The Larch has said, if she can find her own way back to the UK she ought to be arrested and put on trial for whatever the government thinks she has done. If that were to happen, we ought to be willing to accept then that she may be acquitted entirely or may be imprisoned for a short period of time. That seems like an entirely possible outcome and not necessarily a good one. That doesn't seem like a good approach if we are interested in prising young British citizens away from jihadi nut jobs.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/isis-bride-shamima-begum-could-14009353?mc_cid=6d3d1ba5e1&mc_eid=%5bUNIQID%5d

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/shamima-begum-isis-uk-citizenship-revoked-bin-laden-egypt-afghanistan-terror-a8788171.html

[The Larch]

Apparently Bangladesh doesn't want anything to do with her and says that she doesn't have Bangladeshi citizenship and wouldn't be allowed in if she wanted to go there.

Shamima Begum will not be allowed here, says Bangladesh
Minister of foreign affairs insists 19-year-old does not have dual citizenship

Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and there is "no question" of her being allowed into Bangladesh, the country's ministry of foreign affairs has insisted, despite Britain's move to strip the teenager of her UK citizenship.

"The government of Bangladesh is deeply concerned that [Begum] has been erroneously identified as a holder of dual citizenship," Shahrial Alam, state minister of foreign affairs, said in a statement issued to the Guardian, adding that his government had learned of Britain's move to cancel her citizenship rights from media reports.

"Bangladesh asserts that Ms Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen. She is a British citizen by birth and never applied for dual nationality with Bangladesh ... There is no question of her being allowed to enter into Bangladesh."

The strongly-worded statement is a direct challenge to Sajid Javid, the home secretary, who told MPs earlier on Wednesday that he would not waver in his determination to deprive the 19-year-old, who fled to Syria four years ago to marry an Isis fighter, of her citizenship.

[Tamas]

To be fair the Home Office didn't say she had dual citizenship, they just said "yes our law said we cannot make anyone stateless, but she has the option to request another citizenship instead to avoid being stateless so that's good enough for us". Which is quite iffy. It equals to "yeah legally we couldnt' do this, but whatever, she is a bitch".

[Tamas]

I've been following the Shamima Begum case as it blazes across facebook today. In general I agree with what The Larch has said, if she can find her own way back to the UK she ought to be arrested and put on trial for whatever the government thinks she has done. If that were to happen, we ought to be willing to accept then that she may be acquitted entirely or may be imprisoned for a short period of time. That seems like an entirely possible outcome and not necessarily a good one. That doesn't seem like a good approach if we are interested in prising young British citizens away from jihadi nut jobs.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/isis-bride-shamima-begum-could-14009353?mc_cid=6d3d1ba5e1&mc_eid=%5bUNIQID%5d

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/shamima-begum-isis-uk-citizenship-revoked-bin-laden-egypt-afghanistan-terror-a8788171.html

In a highly PRed case like hers it indeed would not serve the UK well to end up showing that having a murderous joyride in the Middle East as your gap year is a perfectly feasible alternative to your otherwise dull life.

But I am not sure revoking citizenships illegally on a whim is the right solution to that.

[Tamas]

In fact now I think this may have been the reason for the questionable citizenship revoking: the Home Office might think they have nothing to imprison her for, and they didn't want to face the massive public backlash of just letting her live freely.

I mean, they have let in 400 suspected jihadists already, so clearly it is not so easy to legally detain these people willy-nilly.