Forum Topic

I assume that travelling to Syria irrespective of which side someone was going to fight for and the relative merits would be in breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act as neither side was a recognised state with regular military force. Hence, on return those fighting for either side would be subject to investigation. I seem to recall reading that there had been few prosecutions because obtaining evidence from that conflict zone was difficult. I agree one should know the difference between right and wrong at age 15 but if one's been groomed or otherwise drifted into an ideological frame of mind about a particular view then one's reality about right, wrong and other things  may be distorted. If one sincerely believes that infidels should be killed then that doesn't seem wrong to that person. It's surely a general problem with the blind faith of religious belief? Although not as harmful to others, far right evangelist Christians who believe in creationism or deny Covid should stop them congregating in the face of the scientific evidence seem to me to be in a similar category? In Begum's case I get the impression the problem is that although she wants to come home she hasn't really renounced her views which perhaps concerns the government; that could of course be because her views are still being influenced by those around her and if she were back home with her family those views might change, but who knows? However, given that she doesn't appear to have Bangladeshi nationality the government doesn't seem to have a strong case in renouncing her UK citizenship as it's bound by international treaty not to make someone stateless. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can't defer judgement on her poisition until they consider it safer in the national interest for her to return or in some bring her appear against being made stateless in some other way. The only thing we know is by leaving her there the issue is just going to rumble on. 

Michael Ixer ● 1862d