Put Shamima Begum on trial – not TV

We need to know whether or not she’s a monster and a traitor, and what the mitigating circumstances are and were

If free speech means anything, it means the right to hear from those one despises; even those who would wish to destroy you. Those who you would dearly love to execute.

With that in mind, the BBC was entirely right to broadcast its excellent documentary, The Story of Shamima Begum. I’ve seen reports of people being sickened by the sight of her, and refusing to pay their licence fee just because she was allowed on their airwaves. Some may even want the corporation shut down.

Fair enough; that’s their right. But they are mistaken.

Josh Baker’s film was essential to an understanding of why Begum did the things she did. The interviews with Begum – over a period of a year – weren’t soft, but the questions were calmly put, and her responses challenged.

The different accounts she’s given of her life with Isis were set out, and independent witnesses, who were there in Syria at the time, questioned her veracity. Baker even managed to track down her husband, Yago Riedijk. There was no attempt to sanitise or excuse the crimes of Isis – public beadings and burning prisoners alive in iron cages.

Begum herself described Isis as the worst thing that has happened in the twenty-first century. The two friends – Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana – that she, as a 15-year old, travelled with to the Isis so-called caliphate are now dead, so we can’t hear their stories. The other girl, Sharmeena Begum (no relation) who’d absconded before them and helped entice Begum to follow on, is apparently still with Isis. She too is part of the context, and we learn a little about her too.

It is a balanced documentary seeking to tell an important story about Begum – a notorious personality; a traitor, if you will – in as dispassionate a way as is possible. You don’t have to watch it, either.

Just because Begum was (or is) a terrorist, doesn’t cancel her right to have her say. Nor does the fact that the British government revoked her citizenship. Nor does the fact that we might well wish that she’d never been born. It’s a human right and, offensive as many will find her appearance on screen and elsewhere in the media, she is still a human being.

Human rights are universal. Her words, as such, do not pose a threat to anyone now, and indeed she appears – appears – to be full of remorse and hatred of Isis. Whether she is entirely sincere, or has one eye on the legal action to allow her to return to Britain is left to the viewer to decide.

Many feel that her case should be properly heard and tried in a British court. There seems little doubt that she was groomed by the Isis propaganda and was as naive as an child; but also that she subscribed to a murderous philosophy and has only renounced her old ideas since the fall of Isis.

There is lots of evidence, pointing in different directions. It feels like it needs sifting and settling, via a trial. Everyone is allowed a fair trial, aren’t they? Even war criminals? I know the government is threatening to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, but we can still hold those rights sacred, can’t we?

So there is a current issue at stake as well with Begum: what to do with her. It’s still a bit of jolt to be told she is only 23 years old. She has lived a lifetime since she left Bethnal Green, and, as she says, seems destined to live her life out in a dusty detention centre in Syria. Yet that also feels unrealistic, because such camps don’t last that long, and sooner or later she’ll probably get released and settle somewhere (legally or otherwise).

She may or may not prove a threat to others, including Britons. If so, she needs to be incarcerated properly, and under the rule of law. We need to know whether or not she's a monster and a traitor, and what the mitigating circumstances are and were. A jury trial would determine that best.

As I say, there is a sense of unfinished business with Begum, and that Britain can’t avoid its role in her fate (even though she is no longer British in the legal sense). It is not that she needs a closure, because that’s not the point at issue. The point is that Britain needs closure, because Begum is such a divisive figure, and is almost haunting – taunting – the country by her continuing existence in legal and moral limbo.

Sooner or later, the story of Shamima Begum will have to have an end point.