Politic?

This is a blog dedicated to a personal interpretation of political news of the day. I attempt to be as knowledgeable as possible before commenting and committing my thoughts to a day's communication.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Exploiting/Betraying Naivete

"Another hour or so, a couple of hours, they would have been gone because the fixer was already there (at Istanbul airport) to meet them."
"Really, there are many that would say that we probably saved the lives of these three young women."
"Now after careful consideration by Crown, it's been decided that we will not proceed with criminal charges against them."
RCMP Superintendent Doug Best, head, Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, Ontario

"Female migrants are not just rejecting the culture and foreign policy of the West; they are also embracing a new vision for society. They hope to contribute to this society, governed by a strict interpretation of Shariah law."
Institute for Strategic Dialogue report

An RCMP officer convinced his Egyptian police contacts to track down and intercept three young Canadian women at Cairo airport before they could catch a connecting flight to Istanbul and cross into Syria.
Scott Nelson/The New York Times   An RCMP officer convinced his Egyptian police contacts to track down and intercept three young Canadian women at Cairo airport before they could catch a connecting flight to Istanbul and cross into Syria.

"It would have been a tough legal argument [to accuse three teens of terrorism]. These girls, they're so young."
"Clearly we don't want to destroy their lives, that's not going to do society any good."
Hussein Hamdani, lawyer for ISIS wannabe-wives' families
They were two sisters, 18 and 19, and a 15-year-old friend. All three girls had decided that their futures should involve becoming a part of the brave new world of the Islamic State caliphate. They had been in touch online with ISIS recruiters who specialize in convincing young Muslim girls that there is no aspiration more noble, courageous and spiritually beautiful than to become a jihadist wife, and a mother in the new universe unfolding to the glory of Islam.

When they were apprehended, and then questioned about why they had decided to say nothing to their parents, and to quietly plan to head off to foreign parts leaving their Canadian lives behind, spurned as unbecoming to the values and concerns of dedicated Muslim women, they responded that they were on a humanitarian mission. And that certainly figures if they believed, as the recruiters must have convinced them, that it was their duty to commit to jihad, to defend Islam against the iniquitous, corrupt West out to destroy their faith.

According to Joana Cook at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, "It has been confirmed that a number of women from Canada are among these [18 percent of foreigners travelling to Syria and Iraq are female]." As a PhD candidate, she is engaged in studying the extremism role of women, for the production of an independent report commissioned by Public Safety Canada.

"It may be more challenging to address women through criminal prosecution in the case of ISIS as they are not the ones taking active fighting roles, and it may also be difficult to prove other types of support they are providing the group. These are not as clear cut as may be the case with men going abroad with the specific intention to carry out terrorist activities", she pointed out. The women, in other words, are enablers, supporters of the men's actions.

The 15-year-old was taking summer classes in July of 2014 and she was dropped off at school, while the older two sisters told their parents they were going to the library. None of the three returned home. Their parents discovered that the 15-year-old had bought airline tickets for three to Istanbul, with a stopover in Cairo. Busy girl, she had obtained a Turkish travel visa, and taken $5,000 from her bank account.

The concerned parents filed missing persons reports with Peel Regional Police in Ontario, whereupon the Peel police contacted the Ontario Provincial Police anti-terrorism section, which then got in touch with the RCMP INSET in Toronto. The INSET investigator tasked with the case spoke with the RCMP liaison officer in Cairo, urging him to canvass his contacts in the Egyptian police.

The Egyptian police tracked the girls before the Istanbul flight departed, holding the girls, and returning them three days after they had left Canada. Examining the young women's social media profiles online, exchanges with ISIS outreach operatives were discovered. Uncertainty remains in official circles how best to respond to these incidents when young girls are retrieved as they set out on a life of sexual-political-religious bondage they likely will later regret having committed to as a romantic impulse.

If they were to be considered terrorism supporters and found accountable under criminal law would that benefit anyone? Might that fear of their children being found criminally responsible deter parents in future from contacting investigating authorities? What, really, represents the most useful course of action, other than to rescue young women from unfortunate impulses born of an imagined future in an imagined perfect state?

Covered: Members of the all-female Al-Khansa Brigade are seen walking in ISIS' de facto capital Raqqa
Covered: Members of the all-female Al-Khansa Brigade are seen walking in ISIS' de facto capital Raqqa

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