East London ‘Jihadi bride’ Shamima Begum has been granted legal aid to fight the decision to remove her UK citizenship. And the Daily Mail reports that some MPs have slammed the decision as “disgusting and ridiculous”.
Support from the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) means that UK taxpayers could face a bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund the former schoolgirl’s fight to return to the UK from a refugee camp in Syria – and this after it was revealed that Begum stitched suicide bombers into their explosive vests; carried a Kalashnikov rifle; and served a role in the IS morality police.
As someone whose family comes from the part of Kurdistan that is in Syria, I find it unfair that the LAA would fund a supporter of Islamic State (IS). I do not think Begum should be welcomed back here, even if she has recently lost a baby. I lack any sympathy towards her because she chose to support a fascist Islamist group responsible for killing Kurdish fighters who gave up their lives to fight IS.
IS is responsible for countless atrocities, including the the murder and rape of thousands of Christian Yazidis over several years. According to a study published in the journal Plos Medicine and reported in The Independent, around 10,000 Yazidis were “killed or captured in a matter of days in Iraq in August 2014.” And of those 10,000 over 3000 were executed using methods that included beheading.
Kurdish fighters with the PKK and YPG have given up their lives to help rid the world of this murderous group. And yet the Kurds have received no support from the UK with their struggle for independence. Their status as Kurds is therefore denied by the UK, whereas Begum, who is a traitor to the UK, is getting financial support to have her UK status recognised.
For Kurds like me this is disturbing, and shocking and gives out completely the wrong message.
