Shamima Begum is a young British woman who left the UK as a 15 year old schoolgirl to join ISIL in 2015 and now at the age of 20 wishes to return home to the UK. She was interviewed in a refugee camp teeming with ISIL members so would not have been able to express anything negative about her experience for fear of reprisals. It is also evident that with live recordings she would not have been able to convey that reality to the journalists interviewing her. However, when these interviews were shown on television and reported upon, the ill-informed public interpreted her careful remarks to be a sign of non-repentance and even a sign that she felt justified in joining ISIL. Similar statements were made by MPs in the House of Commons. She was judged in the public media, today the least safe place for securing the facts and in the end the Home Secretary Sajid Javid stood in judgement and announced that an order had been made with the intention of stripping Begum of her British citizenship.
The British Government have supported insurgents that made up segments of ISIL membership along with the USA and have funded generously the infamous group the "White Helmets" who are also part of ISIL with the job of generating false flag events and videos to place the image of the Syrian government in a bad light. A large part of the "success" of ISIL and a significant part of the propaganda including videos that circulated in the UK were funded generously by the USA. The upset created amongst Moslems of the ongoing indiscriminate murder to innocent Moslems in Iraq, Syria and Libya is well-established, so it is understandable that a young impressionable schoolgirl at 15, of the Moslem faith, might be drawn towards joining a group on the moral grounds of defending Islam. There were no provisions in the United Kingdom to safeguard the young from such propaganda so the prevailing situation was one of an inevitability that some young men and women of that faith, feeling a sense of duty, would join ISIL. Given the actual degree of involvement of the British and US government in "managing" insurgents who were linked to or members of ISIL, it is clearly the case that the British government bears some responsibility for the environment thus created leading to the encouragement of young Moslems to be motivated as Moslems. The argument that they were British citizens and Britain was part of the alliance fighting ISIL has very little relevance, when the White Helmets were putting out propaganda concerning "attacks" on ISIL-held zones reportedly about Moslems being killed. The British support of the White Helmets was always ill-advised and only contributed to the emotional pressure brought to bear on young Moslems in Britain.
Until Shamima Begum can be allowed to enter a court room with legal support, all that has been stated and prematurely acted upon by Sajid Javid, cannot be considered to reflect "British values" simply because she has not been given the opportunity, within an appropriate environment, to explain in more detail what led her to take this decision as a young schoolgirl. No matter what the outcome of such a court appearance would be, she has, so far, been treated unfairly.
Jeremy Hunt, the British Foreign Secretary has stated, "Shamima knew when she made the decision to join Daesh, she was going into a country where there was no embassy, there was no consular assistance, and I'm afraid those decisions, awful though it is, they do have consequences." It is very unlikely that as a 15 year old schoolgirl, acting on emotional impulse, she would have been thinking about embassy and consulate arrangements in Syria. This month (April 2019) Begum was granted Legal Aid, financial assistance to fight the revocation of her British citizenship. Hunt described the Legal Aid Agency's decision as "very uncomfortable", but said admitted that the UK believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them. Boris Johnson, Hunt's predecessor, did not feel uncomfortable paying enormous amounts of money to the White Helmets and even to this day unashamedly promoting the interests of this shady group. The incompetence and overt cruelty of the assembled politicians referred to, reflects badly on anything that might be held up as being the result of British values; what values are we talking about? Her return representing a danger to the British public? There are currently many ISIL/Al Quaeda members in London walking around freely, managed by security agencies as "assets" waiting their next gig in a country destined for regime change. The record of so-called assets, under intelligence agency "control" shows that many have been involved in parallel activities which they do not report back to their Western controllers, or the controllers took no action. The most notorious example being 9/11. In comparative terms, the main potential source of danger to the British public is actually part of current government operations over which they have litttle control. The government, unknown to the British public, take this irresponsible and uncalculated risk and yet will not let Shamima Begum return to her country and home.
