Should Jihadi brides be allowed to come ‘home’?

Should Jihadi brides be allowed to come ‘home’?

Everyone is talking about “The Three Girls” who ran away to become IS brides, one of whom has resurfaced and now wants to come “home”. Shamima Begum is nine months pregnant and unrepentant. The question is, should she be let back into the UK?

The general public thinks no, she made her bed and she must lie on it. The internet says no, overwhelmingly. 

I’m ambivalent myself because... what if she and her child die or get killed? I don’t like the idea of martyrdom. The very idea is grotesque.  

The World at One dealt with this news. The car radio is a bit crackly and tends to fade in and out, but I thought I heard Sarah Montague chatting to a former Met. Chief Superintendent called Dal Babu. (I’ve looked him up, and it seems he bears a grudge against his former colleagues) and I do believe he said it was the police’s fault that these girls managed to get away. He said they had been under surveillance at the time, and the police could have warned their parents, but didn’t. He said the police gave the girls letters for their parents but they didn’t pass them on. 

Babu’s theory that the parents were completely ignorant of their daughters’ Jihadi-like aspirations struck me as extremely dubious, since at least one of the other girls' parents, Hussen Abase, pictured at the time of their disappearance holding a teddy bear, turned out to be pretty a radicalised Islamist himself. (he was caught on film gesticulating angrily, amongst the mob at an Islamist riot)

The next part of the programme included an explanation as to what might have driven the girls to run away. Henna Rai of the Women Against Radicalisation Network suggested that the girls’ families were “orthodox” and would have controlled their girls’ lives and imposed the customary severe Islamic-style restrictions upon them, so, what with “their hormones flying and no other way to express themselves”, naturally they’d want to escape, who wouldn’t? 

I’m inclined to blame Islam itself, which - as well as the so-called 'groomers', was surely conveyed directly through the ones who fuck you up - your mum and dad. I love the way BBC people like to describe repressive, unreconstructed sixth-century cultural practices as “orthodox’ or sometimes ‘conservative’.  

So go and interview the families. They put on a fine histrionic display of emotion for the cameras at the time of the girls’ abscondences; what with the tears and the teddies, and “Please come home, you’re not in trouble” 

Yes, You. Are.

It’s very sad that both this girl’s babies have died. I’m sure the conditions in Syria were appalling, but you can’t help noticing that Ms Begum herself didn’t look particularly malnourished. Should she succeed in making her way back home with the baby I doubt she’d ever be trusted to look after it.

Even the teddy looked embarrassed

Dear Mr Sucker,
Thank you for contacting us about our coverage of (insert relevant topic).Please accept our apologies for the delay in sending this boilerplate reply. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response but we prefer wait till they’ve lost interest. BBC News is aware of (insert issue.) We have looked into the matter ourselves and on this occasion we didn’t consider it merited a complaint.Your complaint has been included in our overnight report of audience feedback. Please be assured that it has been disregarded.Thank you again for raising this matter.Yours sincerely,
BBC Complaints

The BBC is having you on! Do they expect you to believe that codswallop?

“BBC News is aware of the video material said to show Mr Hussen at a rally in 2012 and we have looked into the matter ourselves.” 

Like anyone else who happened to be awake and conscious at the time, BBC News is aware of that video, but  “We didn’t consider it merited a report on its own”. 

What? When the BBC had spent hours on end blanket-covering a parliamentary hearing in which Hussen, Fahmida Aziz,  Sahima Begum and Solicitor Tasnime Akunjee sat before Keith Vaz accusing the police, the school and everyone but themselves for the baffling defection from the Bethnal Green Academy of ‘the three girls’ as they made their way to Syria to become Jihadi brides?

What? When the BBC considered that

'Syria-bound' girls: Amira Abase's father 'suspected nothing' (22nd Feb)

Syria girls: Families 'cannot stop crying’ (22nd Feb)

Missing Syria girls' families criticise police over letter (7th March)

Tracking Britain’s Jihadists  (25th March)

Syria girls: Shamima Begum used older sister's passport (23 February)

did merit reports “on their own”? 

 It seems impossible to believe that this important revelation, which made fools of everyone concerned, and which made the headlines on every conceivable news organ imaginable, the Daily Mail, the Spectator, The Express, and oh, I can’t be bothered to list them all, didn’t “merit” a mention on one of the BBC’s millions of portals or whatever you call them? Not even on days ‘one, two, miss-a-few, ninety nine, one hundred’? 

“but it was included in a TV piece due to run on the evening of Friday, March 27th. Unfortunately, because of other news priorities, including the court verdict in the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher case, it didn’t make it to air. “

How unfortunate. Unfortunate? It was a bit more than unfortunate. It was unbelievable. Preposterous. 

What kind of fools do they take you (us) for? Did they think you’d be fobbed off with that excuse, that some unsensational news about Amanda Knox whose fate, let’s face it, most people had long since ceased to care about was more important than the BBC’s total character misjudgment of the Hussen family and that dodgy solicitor? 

It reminds me of this. "Something more important" happened, therefore we missed it out -  and the next day and the day after that? !

Come off it.

That boilerplate thing they do is rude and very, very patronising. The ubiquitous apology for the delay with no explanation.

“Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and are sorry you’ve had to wait on this occasion.”

On this occasion? These occasions are more than commonplace. They’re the norm. Why does there need to be a delay?

“Your complaint has been included in our overnight report of audience feedback that is sent to news teams and senior management within BBC News. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensure that your complaint has been seen by the right people quickly.Thank you again for raising this matter.

Who are these ‘right people’? Name one. Get one to respond!!

Abase response from the BBC Complaints department

I complained to the BBC on 31st March as follows:

Please could you explain why the Daily Mail front page of 28 March, with its headline story 'Jihadi Girl's Dad is a Fanatic', was completed omitted from the previous day's News Channel's 'The Papers' (11pm, 27/3)? Every other national newspaper's front page was featured 

Also why was the same Daily Mail front page missing from the BBC website's 'The Papers' the following morning (28/3)?

And why did Radio 4's 'Today' fail to mention it either its its paper reviews?

Was this story being deliberately censored across the BBC's main reporting platforms?

Given the extensive coverage of the complaints made against the British authorities by the family of the three girls from London who went to Syria to join Isis, shouldn't the BBC have led the way in reporting the Daily Mail's scoop about the apparent extremist links of one of the girls' father, given its obvious relevance to the story?

The BBC's response has been some time coming but it finally arrived today. It says:

Thank you for contacting us about our coverage of Abase Hussen.

Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and are sorry you’ve had to wait on this occasion.

BBC News is aware of the video material said to show Mr Hussen at a rally in 2012 and we have looked into the matter ourselves.

We didn’t consider it merited a report on its own, but it was included in a TV piece due to run on the evening of Friday, March 27th. Unfortunately, because of other news priorities, including the court verdict in the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher case, it didn’t make it to air.

However, it is something that we do intend to return to in the future.

Your complaint has been included in our overnight report of audience feedback that is sent to news teams and senior management within BBC News. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensure that your complaint has been seen by the right people quickly.

Thank you again for raising this matter.

Yours sincerely,

BBC Complaints 

You'll have noticed that the BBC's reply doesn't answer my specific questions about why the Daily Mail's lead story about Abase Hussen was completely ignored across three BBC platforms (TV, radio and website). It ignores them.

It merely tells us instead that the BBC knew about the story, but didn't think it very important. The BBC was going to mention it during a TV piece, apparently, but that piece got dropped.

So, after all the coverage Abase Hussen got when his daughter ran off to join the vicious terrorists of Islamic State, strongly denouncing the British authorities for failing his daughter and family whilst doing so, the BBC obviously felt it was OK not to inform its audience about the evidence suggesting that Mr Hussen himself is an extremist - a vital ingredient in telling the whole story, surely?

When the BBC Complaints guy writes, "However, it is something that we do intend to return to in the future", I afraid I don't have any confidence in that pledge whatsoever. They clearly have absolutely no plans to update this story. The censorship will continue.

Everyone is hurting

First the three,  then the five.

 Bethnal Green Academy, what is it like? 

It emerges that teddybear-cuddling Abase Hussen who had no idea how his daughter became radicalised had been indulging in a little light flag-burning and a spot of recreational marching with Anjem Choudary. Apart from that, Abase is the very model of  modern English gentleman. 

“Shamima's sister Renu urged her not to "do anything stupid", adding she is "our baby". Halima Khanom, Kadiza's sister, said: "Everyone is hurting."

Apparently they can’t stop cryin’ !

Sad as it is,  the police caved in to pressure from the select committee and  goodness knows who else, and actually apologised to this family for not preventing their daughter and her friends from running off to be jihadi brides. 

There they were sitting in front of the select committee, all hard-done by and sorry for themselves, while all along they were deeply involved in the radical ideology that tempted their daughter and her friends to follow their dreams. Islamic State ahoy.

I don’t know whether this comes under the category of ‘extremism’ as defined by Theresa May. It’s their ‘norm’ innit.

Either way it looks like deception of a most unpleasant kind.