What to do with the returnees?

[Brenus]

What to do with the returnees?

Few times in the news, I saw that some are coming back from the Paradise on Earth that IS was supposed to be, the Land Of Islam itself.

First one was the young woman who decided to be a Jihadee’s wife, got what she wanted and decided it was not really what she wanted. No electricity, conditions of living appalling and not nice life or a girl who grow-up in European Standards of life, in term of expressing yourself, free to wear almost what you want when you want. She didn’t find what she hoped, she said. What did she expected and her initial support for a brutal, bloody and oppressive ideology is not the debate. She came back with a baby, after escaping to Turkey, crossing wires and others dangers. She show great determination in doing so.

Second, one man was arrested by the UK police coming back by taxi (driven by his cousin) to see his sick father. As he posed with severed heads on pictures, the UK police decided to interrogate him about this (note to pose with severed heads is not really a problem as attested by the sentence of non-guilty by The Hague War-Crime bla-bla Court in the case of Naser Oric).

I as well saw a note that 1 on 5 of these returnees are now questioned about their involvement in the conflict.

So, excepted the knee-jerk reaction of “they choose to go, so let then rot in their dirt”, how and what to do with them, as they will pose a security problem?

[Husar]

Depends on the case.

If they are really sorry and have seen the error of their ways, give them a lot of taxpayer money....


....to tell others about what a bad idea going there really is.

I still don't know that many people who are stupid on purpose / by choice. It's probably better when a returnee tells them not to go than to send a boring government employee in a beige suit with colourful leaflets.

Of course if they did a lot of horrible things back there and/or aren't even sorry and come back for other reasons, jail them for treason or so.

And since I'm not sure where else to post this and it's somewhat related, here is an interesting interview with someone who went there and still is there. The journalist made a deal with the IS over the internet and was allowed to visit the state relatively safely. Still took a lot of balls because he couldn't be 100% sure they'd stick to the deal. It's German with English subtitles.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152723644955838

[Gilrandir]

If they are really sorry and have seen the error of their ways

They can pretend to be to get the money.

Of course if they did a lot of horrible things back there

You can never know.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Such persons should be cautiously welcomed. Repenting of one's previous mistaken choices is not cost-free, but should not be prevented. On the other hand, I would expect domestic security services to watch and review such persons periodically to minimize sleeper-cells and the like.

[Husar]

They can pretend to be to get the money.

You can never know.

We can establish a new agency and call it the Gestasi (geheime Staatssicherheit), they will find out.

There are also well-established methods to get your money back if the wrong person takes it:

[Strike For The South]

High Treason is a hangable offense

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

High Treason is a hangable offense

The EU made us get rid of hanging for treason :(

Anyway - posing with severed heads means you were out there fighting, given the way IS fights I'd say this guy should be locked up or deported back to his new homeland.

The girl, perhaps, should be allowed to stay as afaik the "wives" of IS fighters have it only slightly better than their slave girls.

[Fragony]

Pretty easy, take of their pasport, that is perfectly legal as they are not stateless as they have double nationalities. Marroco and Algeria where most are from will just drop them in the desert. voila. Is it so hard.

[Brenus]

Stupidity is not High Treason.

To have pictures of you with severed heads is not a crime, it is not the proof that you did it, even if you say so. As I said, Naser Oric, commander of Srebrenica was found not guilty in The Hague even if he told journalists he did it and show them videos. It was videos at that time.

I am not sure on this subject.
Because the reason they went was to support a totalitarian ideology, in full sense. I know I said it shouldn't change our attitude, but if someone go to fight for Freedom and Democracy and get it wrong, ok, sh** happened.
But even I am sure that for some it was "just" to upset the family and so, they still went to support criminals. And for these, they paid the price.
And it is not only they support criminals, they might became criminals, and perhaps still are.
However, we can't kick out (in the desert or not) a young mom and her baby under the pretexts she was stupid, and the father of the baby is a criminal nutter.
So, we cannot just ignore the problem, as they are still citizens of the countries of origin. And in France, you can't take the citizenship away.
Difficult difficult.

[Fragony]

Yes you can take away French citizenship, they won't be stateless. Doesn't mean you will have to be mean to their familie, not your fault they said adieu to everything they left behind. Why care, they don't care about you.

[Husar]

The EU made us get rid of hanging for treason :(

Part of the reason we established the EU was to improve Britain.
No need to thank us.

Anyway - posing with severed heads means you were out there fighting, given the way IS fights I'd say this guy should be locked up or deported back to his new homeland.

The girl, perhaps, should be allowed to stay as afaik the "wives" of IS fighters have it only slightly better than their slave girls.

That's pretty simple, it sounds like you just assume typical gender roles.
In reality it is not that simple however.

These people have made colourful experiences in different countries where our laws do not apply, it is not up to us to judge them, we should see what we can learn from them and how they can enrich our society.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Part of the reason we established the EU was to improve Britain.
No need to thank us.



That's pretty simple, it sounds like you just assume typical gender roles.
In reality it is not that simple however.

These people have made colourful experiences in different countries where our laws do not apply, it is not up to us to judge them, we should see what we can learn from them and how they can enrich our society.

I'll just assume your link refers to female IS fighters - but Brenus mentioned the wife of an IS fighter, which is different.

Even so in the IS we may, in fact, assume traditional gender roles because they are a bunch of backwards Koran thumping, Yazadi raping, slave taking, child murdering, monastery sacking loons.

Please note that the above description is restricted to their reported acitvities without embellishment.

[Kralizec]

So, we cannot just ignore the problem, as they are still citizens of the countries of origin. And in France, you can't take the citizenship away.
Difficult difficult.

Apparently, yes you can.

There are some international treaties which restrict this possibility, such as the one regarding stateless persons like Frag said.

The article suggests that it's only possible for people who've acquired French citizenship through naturalization. If true, I guess that makes sense in one way but you could easily argue the opposite. Personally I'm ambivalent about the idea.


EDIT: to answer the original post...and besides "islamic terrorists are EVIL!!!1111!!"....

...volunteering to fight as an insurgent against a recognised government (i.e. Iraq) is a serious crime in most jurisdictions.* If a Dutch person leaves to fight for ISIS and then returns, I personally see no reason why he shouldn't be prosecuted. The excact level of punishment should be left to the judiciary.

For people who have traveled there but haven't actually fought or committed atrocities, I'd be in favour of a soft-hand approach. They most likely would still be nasty fundamentalists and all that, but in the absence of any crimes committed there's isn't much you can do except keeping a close eye on them.

(*apparently not in Russia, but we have another thread for that)

[Husar]

I'll just assume your link refers to female IS fighters - but Brenus mentioned the wife of an IS fighter, which is different.

Even so in the IS we may, in fact, assume traditional gender roles because they are a bunch of backwards Koran thumping, Yazadi raping, slave taking, child murdering, monastery sacking loons.

Well, for housewives, yes. The wives of Mujahideen don't seem to suffer a lot though. I don't have the time to read all of it, but there is a report on the subject here: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/ISD..._01.15_WEB.PDF

Seems to be largely based on the analysis of tweets, but given that reporters have a hard time to get to the IS if they want to get out alive again, I suppose that's the best we have. But even these housewives are not blameless as they also work towards recruiting more young girls, tell them to go there etc. If these women are purely victims, then why do they provide propaganda to create more victims?

Either way, given that a lot of the people who go there come from extremist groups, it's likely that they were being watched even before they went there. The interview I posted earlier also covers the topic, apparently the IS would say that most of the returnees betrayed the IS, that seems to mean that they mostly stopped believing in the goals of the IS. Exceutions of hundreds of fighters who tried to leave but got caught would underline this. There are some who just want to come here for other reasons, but most of the returnees are probably done with the extremist backwards life to some extent.

[Ice]

High Treason is a hangable offense

Agreed. Not sure I'd hang them, but I don't think I'd welcome them back either.

[Fragony]

Agreed. Not sure I'd hang them, but I don't think I'd welcome them back either.

Most have two nationalities, take of one. Perfectly possible by international law. Maroco and Algeria aren'f very kind to extremists so they will just dissapear after the plane landed. It isn't all that hard.

As the himself muslim mayor of Rotterdam gently puts is, just go, get the fuck out of here, and never come back.

[Gilrandir]

Anyway - posing with severed heads means you were out there fighting

There is a popular entertainment in maritime cities of Ukraine: along the beach one can see strolling people having different exotic animals and birds on a tether: monkeys, donkeys, parrots, eagles, peacocks, snakes and the like. Holiday makers can have pictures taken holding those animals. Yet it doesn't mean they have hunted them or are likely to eat them. Perhaps similar cases are those with severed heads.

Most have two nationalities, take of one. Perfectly possible by international law.

Not necessary to do that - just introduce a law forbidding double citizenship (as in Ukraine) and make them choose only one.

[Fragony]

I am perfectly happy with double nationalities, if they have only one you can't denaturalise them. As long as they have two we can just put them on the plane, and don't allow entry if they want to come back. It's all so simple but the political will to make sense is lacking.

[rory_20_uk]

Double nationalities is relatively easy - they should loose their (usually) Western one when they decide to prance off to the 1500's.

Those without - a lot harder. Part of me thinks that the point of the MI6 etc is to collate evidence and ensure that they don't come back. Just quietly killed in battle rather than monitor them across the whole of Europe to then have to spend money on due process. We're not talking about collaborators in an occupied country where people play lip service for safety, they've spent a lot of effort to get to Paradise and I say we help 'em.

Otherwise, there's nothing we can really do. There will never be the evidence required to try them (as has been pointed out, circumstantial isn't hard evidence) and so we can flap about worrying about the few that do decide to become sleepers and spend loads of money integrating the others.

All we ask in the West is that you join in with the culture we have and most places in Europe have a very broad definition of what this is and practically all cultures and religions manage to do so - bar a very small minority of Muslims. I don't say what we do is right / the best but it is what we do and is our norms. Rather than continue to spend resources on those who clearly don't want to be, get rid of this few and spend the time integrating everyone else.

[Fragony]

Of course there is something we can do, if we can't expell them we can still kill them without anyone noticing, probably already happens, there is a drugs-war between Marrocan gangs and liquidations between them occur almost every week.Nobody is going to ask any questionsas there are too many cases, and nobody cares anyway. Smokescreen ftw

[Seamus Fermanagh]

High Treason is a hangable offense

Make sure you have two witnesses -- and a lawyer to prove 'adherence to an Enemy' in the absence of a declaration of war.

[Fragony]

Does not fly anyway, you have to be joining forces of a state you are at war with for it to be high-treason. Just getting into a fight does not count you are jusr a mercenary then. By law, not sanity.

[Fragony]

Gawd this is hilarious, it is only slightly on topic and probably slipping it, but I reckoned it's the best place to place it http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...tching-wankers

[Fragony]

Sole consideration, and just my own, shouldn't we just look at what IS actually does, and forget about the rest. It's a horribly faulted concept, but how far are you willing to go looking away untill the abyss starts gazing into you. It's so very miserable what these idiots do, and we can just kill them when we want to kill them.

before you say it, I know I got quot wrong. But I do understand it's meaning.

[Strike For The South]

It's interesting how people choose to draw the lines between bad fascists and those fascists that are only "misguided".

Hanging is a civilized way to go. They are more than welcome to make their lives in their new paradise. Nothing is sacred in the west anymore, not even the citizenship we traded our religiosity for.

Sad.

[Fragony]

Trialing them for high treason ain't possible unless we recognise the IS as a state we are officially at war with. Even then, we abandoned death penalty. In the Netherlands there is nothing to get back to, their bank accounts are frozen and their passports are invalid. They can still enter the country because of the open borders but there is nothing for them here.

[Husar]

Hanging is a civilized way to go. They are more than welcome to make their lives in their new paradise. Nothing is sacred in the west anymore, not even the citizenship we traded our religiosity for.

What about our constitutions and values which do not allow us to hang anyone or take their citizenship away?
Should we just abandon those sacred values because you tell us that hanging people is more sacred or what's your point?

[Kralizec]

It's interesting how people choose to draw the lines between bad fascists and those fascists that are only "misguided".

Hanging is a civilized way to go. They are more than welcome to make their lives in their new paradise. Nothing is sacred in the west anymore, not even the citizenship we traded our religiosity for.

Sad.

Everybody here seems to agree that if there's sufficient evidence they committed crimes of some sort (i.e. aiding an armed insurgency against a recognised government) they'll have to face charges. If there's no evidence of this sort, you can't really do anything. I'm not sure what your problem is.

I suppose you could invent a criminal offence for people like Brenus mentioned, who only travel there because they want to live in rebel-held territory and willingly associate with them in some way. But I foresee trouble with coming up with a definition that excludes journalists and humanitarian workers (not really relevant in the case of IS, but moreso for other conflict zones). And creating a new criminal defintion obviously won't apply to current cases.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

What about our constitutions and values which do not allow us to hang anyone or take their citizenship away?
Should we just abandon those sacred values because you tell us that hanging people is more sacred or what's your point?

You're an atheist, nothing is sacred to you.

[Fragony]

Everybody here seems to agree that if there's sufficient evidence they committed crimes of some sort (i.e. aiding an armed insurgency against a recognised government) they'll have to face charges. If there's no evidence of this sort, you can't really do anything. I'm not sure what your problem is.

I suppose you could invent a criminal offence for people like Brenus mentioned, who only travel there because they want to live in rebel-held territory and willingly associate with them in some way. But I foresee trouble with coming up with a definition that excludes journalists and humanitarian workers (not really relevant in the case of IS, but moreso for other conflict zones). And creating a new criminal defintion obviously won't apply to current cases.

Never thought about that one, that's a really good point.