Four years ago, three 15 year old girls flew to Turkey and crossed the border into IS-held territory in Syria. They were British Muslims who had been radicalised on line. Within a few weeks of their arrival, they were married and began their task of bringing new soldiers into the world.
There was considerable publicity about their action at the time. Their parents knew nothing of their intention.
One of these girls, now 19, wants to return to Britain to give birth to her third child - her earlier children had died from malnutrition and disease. There is debate about whether or not this should be allowed, after all, she may act as a kind of fifth columnist and engage in clandestine activities herself. Her comments about atrocities that she has been aware of suggest that she is somewhat blase about IS activities.
My view:
1 She was 15 when she left - she was a child.
2 Her intentions were known to the security services and to the police - but her parents were not informed, nor was any attempt made to stop her or to deradicalise her.
3 She is a UK citizen by birth.
Therefore, I consider that she should be allowed to come "home". She should be carefully monitored and subjected to systematic deradicalisation - the state, through its own inaction, bears much responsibility in this instance. I am aware that deradicalisation is not always successful - but an attempt must be made. She is damaged and some attempt must be made to repair her.
What do others think? Am I being too naive and idealistic?
One more damaged person to add to the growing number of seemingly damaged people in Britain that this country seems to lack the resources or know-how to 'fix'? Even if she made it back it doesn't seem likely that she would be properly monitored due to lack of resources. I'm not sure what she means when she says she doesn't regret going to join ISIS but it doesn't sound promising.
I suppose it would be discrimination to decide that a damaged Muslim UK citizen was worse for society than a damaged non-Muslim UK citizen, but I don't think it would be discrimination to examine her views and speech and prosecute her for joining a terrorist organisation if she did make it back. Given that there seems to have been police action in Britain against certain types of speech in the past, it's only fair that she should be similarly prosecuted on her return if she uses “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour that causes, or is likely to cause, another person harassment, alarm or distress” or is deemed to incite “racial and religious hatred” or “hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation” or language that “encourages terrorism”. But again, not sure the resources exist to monitor this.
What is difficult to deal with is people whose speech does not fall within the above definitions but nevertheless causes division. I went to a mosque seemingly full of ordinary, friendly people a few months ago and was extremely annoyed to hear someone say during a charity fundraising speech in the mosque that the mosque used to be a British Legion Club where members of the armed forces came to celebrate murdering and raping Muslims.
Obviously many members of the British armed forces have saved Muslim lives, and these stupid generalisations are similar to the garbage that people such as Tommy Robinson come out with.
Given this girl is helpfully stuck in a refugee camp out of the UK and still doesn't seem to understand that joining a violent caliphate made up of fallible humans was never going to end well, I don't see any need for UK consulate staff to travel to a failed state war zone to bring her back to add to the pool of people here who try to stir up division through facile generalisations about other groups. Hopefully her current lack of regret in joining ISIS means it's unlikely that she will be helped to get to a British consulate in Turkey by anyone who is against ISIS.
