Shamima Begum And Britain’s Shame

Three teenage girls left Britain in 2015 to join ISIS, or whatever it was called that week. One of them, Shamima Begum, was just 15 when she left the UK. When she revealed her wish to return home, then Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped her of her UK citizenship, rendering her stateless, in what appeared to be a routine breach of international law.

Shamima Begum - as she was then

The BBC reported at the time that “Government sources said it was possible to strip the 19-year-old of British nationality as she was eligible for citizenship of another country”. However, “Ms Begum is believed to be of Bangladeshi heritage but when asked by the BBC, she said she did not have a Bangladesh passport and had never been to the country”.

The thought entered that, had Ms Begum not been one of those Scary Muslims™, the Tories would not have been so eager to remove her citizenship. Indeed, their pals in our free and fearless press would have ensured no such removal took place. It was yet another example of how Islamophobia has, as Sayeeda Warsi put it, passed the dinner party test.

But all of that pales into insignificance when put alongside the latest revelations concerning Ms Begum’s departure from the UK and her subsequent journey to the Middle East: now, the BBC reports that “Shamima Begum, who fled the UK and joined the Islamic State group, was smuggled into Syria by an intelligence agent for Canada … Files seen by the BBC show he claimed to have shared Ms Begum's passport details with Canada, and smuggled other Britons to fight for IS”. There is more.

“At the main Istanbul bus station, the girls met Mohammed Al Rasheed, who would facilitate their journey to IS-controlled Syria. A senior intelligence officer, at an agency which is part of the global coalition against IS, has confirmed to the BBC that Rasheed was providing information to Canadian intelligence while smuggling people to IS”. And yet more.

“The BBC has obtained a dossier … that contains information gathered by law enforcement and intelligence, as well as material recovered from his hard drives, which provide extraordinary detail about how he operated. He told authorities that he had gathered information on the people he helped into Syria because he was passing it to the Canadian embassy in Jordan”.

What the Beeb is not telling, but the Guardian certainly is, is that the Metropolitan Police knew what was going on. As Battersea bedroom dweller Paul Watson likes to tell his followers, let that sink in.

Dan Sabbagh has noted “A new book says Met police knew she was helped to join IS by a Canadian spy, reinforcing concerns she was [a] victim of trafficking”. The book, The Secret History of the Five Eyes, is out this week. It “reveals that Canadian intelligence officers went shortly after to the British police to admit their connection to Rashed, boosting the argument that the teenager from Bethnal Green and her two friends were in fact trafficked”.

That would be shortly after their security agencies’ asset facilitated Ms Begum’s travel to IS-occupied Syria. The problem she and her lawyers face is, as Sabbagh reminds us, MI5’s assessment concluded that “public sentiment is overwhelmingly hostile” to her, adding “In other words, the argument against Begum was not legal but political”.

Even though our own security agencies knew what was going on, but did not intervene, and, indeed, effectively covered it up. Because, as the Tweeter known as Otto English put it, “Shamima Begum was 15 when she was groomed, trafficked and "married". If she was a white girl the very tossers who want her to remain stateless and bullied would be rallying to her defence”. What you will not see on GB News or TalkTV.

As the BBC report says, “Ms Begum's lawyers are challenging the removal of her citizenship, arguing she was a trafficking victim”. That challenge now looks yet more justified, even though, predictably, “Canada and the UK declined to comment on security issues”. And once the right-wing press starts up, the Tories will genuflect in the general direction of the Gammonati.

Shamima Begum should have her British citizenship restored. That is all.

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