Shamima Begum has been described as “a model inmate” by authorities who run the detention center she is confined in after fleeing the UK to join ISIS at the age of 15.
Dubbed the most famous British inmate in the Syrian camp, Begum, 24, was praised as “brave” by Roj director Rashid Omar.
“She is one of the few who refused to wear the niqab,” he said. The temperature.
“In the current circumstances, given our difficulties in protecting women, this is a courageous decision.”
Roj detention camp, northeast Syria houses 2,600 detainees, 95 percent of them women, from 55 countries, choosing to wear a niqab or being forced to do so.
Shamima Begum, 24, has been described as a “model inmate” at the Roj detention center where she currently lives after refusing to wear the niqab.
Roj camp houses around 60 Britons, with around 2,600 detainees in total
About 95 percent of the women housed in this facility, from 55 countries, choose to wear the niqab or are forced to do so. Begum decided to go against the rules and not wear a niqab.
Turkey has carried out several waves of airstrikes on northeastern Syria since October last year in a bid to eliminate Kurdish militants based in Iraq and Syria.
The niqab is a long garment worn by Muslim women to conceal their entire body and face, excluding their eyes, to express their modesty.
Omar revealed that in the Roj camp, “women are beaten for disobeying orders, then threatened with death to prevent them from reporting these attacks.”
But that didn’t stop Begum from wandering around the camp in Primark clothes, Nike trainers and wearing makeup believed to have been smuggled in by some Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) soldiers guarding the gates of the facility.
Footage of Begum shows her inside the camp with her hair down, after she allegedly had it cut by another jihadist wife in the camp.
Omar explained that Turkey has carried out several waves of airstrikes on northeastern Syria since October last year in a bid to eliminate Kurdish militants based in Iraq and Syria.
“It feels like we’re in some kind of siege here,” he said.
He added that women feel empowered when they hear bombardments against them and have started acting “as one hand”.
Begum was spotted in the camp sporting a more westernized look with Nike trainers and Primark leggings.
“They see me and my team and they run their fingers down their throats. They are more organized, more powerful,” he said.
Due to the Roj strikes, living conditions in the camp, where Begum has lived since 2019, have been described by the Red Cross as “extremely volatile” due to electricity and water cuts.
Begum once compared life in the camp to “worse than prison” because: “At least with prison sentences you know there will be an end, but here you don’t know if it will there be an end.
Begum is just one of around 60 Britons believed to still be living in the camp after her British citizenship was stripped on national security grounds in 2019, leaving her stateless.
Her refusal to disavow ISIS after being found in the al-Hol camp five years ago led the Interior Ministry to revoke her citizenship.
When first discovered in al-Hol, the IS bride was photographed in a black hijab, but since moving to Roj, she has adopted a more Westernized image – one that portrays courage to eyes of authority figures in the camp.
It comes just days after the 24-year-old lost an initial attempt to challenge the removal of her British citizenship in the Supreme Court.
A judicial spokesperson confirmed on March 25 that Begum had asked the Court of Appeal for the green light to take her case to the Supreme Court, but this had been refused.
Begum will now have to apply directly to the Supreme Court to hear her case.
Dismissing her challenge at the Court of Appeal last month, Chief Justice Baroness Carr said: “It could be argued that the decision in Ms Begum’s case was harsh.
Begum was found in al-Hol camp five years ago and was wearing a black niqab at the time.
Begum recently lost an initial attempt to challenge the removal of her British citizenship in the Supreme Court.
Begum lives in the Al-Roj refugee camp, after being found in the Al-Hol camp to the south in 2019.
“It could also be argued that Ms Begum is the author of her own misfortune, but it is not for this court to agree or disagree with either view.
“The court’s only task was to assess whether the deprivation decision was illegal. To the extent that this is not the case, Ms Begum’s appeal is dismissed.
Last year, Begum lost her challenge to the decision of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), which said the revocation of her citizenship was lawful.
But her lawyers argued that the Home Office’s decision to strip her of her citizenship was unlawful, in part because British authorities had failed to properly consider whether she was a potential victim of trafficking.
Begum has previously admitted knowingly joining a banned organisation, but said she was “ashamed” of her actions and regretted the decision.
Earlier this year, three Court of Appeal judges unanimously rejected his attempt to overturn SIAC’s decision.
The former schoolgirl from east London traveled to Syria in 2015 to support the Islamic State terrorist group, with her two friends Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15.
Sultana is believed to have died in a house explosion and Abase’s fate remains unknown.
Ignoring her family’s warnings that Syria was a ‘dangerous place,’ the former ‘straight A student’ married a Dutch Islamic State fighter, currently held in a Kurdish detention center, and began her life within one of the country’s most brutal terrorist groups. history.
Shortly after marrying Yago Riedijk, a convert to Islam, Begum had three children, all of whom died of malnutrition or disease.
They were a one-year-old girl, a three-month-old boy and a newborn son.
In a 2019 interview, BBC Middle East correspondent Quentin Sommerville asked Begum if the terrorist group’s “beheading videos” were one of the things that attracted her to it.
She responded, “Not just the beheading videos, the videos that show families and stuff in the park. The good life they can offer you. Not just fight videos, but yeah, fight videos too, I guess.
She still lives in the Roj detention center, and her lawyers say conditions in the camp have reached a “critical point,” with “near starvation” and illnesses seen on a daily basis.