Terrorists or victims?

[zoco]

I am concerned about the presumption that all the young men coming back from Syria are terrorists. It is likely that some are suffering post-traumatic stress and need help.
Some will have come back disillusioned, having gone out to fight for a cause and found barbarity and cruelty instead. I hope they are being treated individually and humanely rather than demonised.


Mary Barnes
London NW5

Today's IoS letters page

[SueEllen]

Today's IoS letters page

Unfortunately lots of the gullible fools who went there aren't properly religious and just wanted to join a gang of fools like themselves.

When they come back they will find there is a fatwa against their actions plus may find they can't leave the UK again for a very long time............

[MarillionFan]

Today's IoS letters page

Dear Mary

Get F u c k e d you daft cow.

Yours

MF

[EternalOptimist]

Dear Mary
do you have a couple of spare rooms to put the poor lambs up in, are you sure you can afford the time and the money for the therapy and the food and drink.
Or were you expecting everyone else to pay for your nice sentiments

[Avalonia]

They need help from being live terrorists to dead terrorists

[scooterscot]

Ban on return of British jihadists ‘may breach their human rights

Terrorists have rights to you know. We had a hand in striking the match from illegal war with Iraq, we can't claim no responsibility with those nutters.

Ban on return of British jihadists

Ban on return of British jihadists ‘may breach their human rights’

Sir Menzies Campbell
Moves to ban British terrorist suspects from returning to the UK could be illegal, a leading Liberal Democrat has warned, as officials scrambled to work out how to fill “gaps” in the anti-terrorism laws.

David Cameron is to announce the measures in a wide-ranging statement about the various international conflicts in the Commons today.

Defences against jihadists from Britain and across western Europe needed to be stiffened up, and the country faced “very real threats”, Michael Fallon, the defence secretary said yesterday. He denied that plans to prevent would-be jihadists from travelling to Iraq and Syria while keeping out some returning Britons were a “kneejerk response”.

The courts were the biggest challenge, he said, having replaced the previous Labour government’s regime of control orders. Among measures understood to be under consideration are proposals to make it easier to remove people’s passports through temporary seizure powers at the border.

Officials are also looking at the prospect of a “temporary bar” on British citizens suspected of terrorist activity from returning, a measure that would stop short of stripping them of citizenship and rendering them stateless.

The package could also include beefed-up powers under the terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims) regime. There have been calls, including from David Anderson, QC, an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, for the ability to impose “internal exile” on suspects.

The security services will also be able to access information about airline passengers more easily under new measures, and the government is expected to increase co-operation with Turkey and Germany. Jihadists are believed to have returned to Britain via those countries.

The plans to ban British terrorism suspects from returning could be illegal, Sir Menzies Campbell said. The former Lib Dem leader, who also sits on the intelligence and security committee, said: “I think it’s rather difficult and it might well constitute illegality.

“To render a citizen stateless is regarded as illegal in international law. To render them stateless temporarily, which seems to be the purpose of what’s been proposed, can also, I think, be described as illegal.

“At the very least it’s the kind of question which will be tested here in our own courts and perhaps also in the European Court of Human Rights.”

He told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend: “Any fresh legislation would have to be subject to the scrutiny of parliament. There will be people on all sides of the House, including some of the prime minister’s own backbenchers, who will want to examine in very careful detail any question of extension.”

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, another former Lib Dem leader, also criticised the Tory response to the terrorism threat level being raised from “substantial” to “severe”, claiming that ministers had set out to frighten people to secure support for new powers.

Writing in The Observer, Lord Ashdown said that politicians should not act as “cheerleaders” for the demands of the intelligence and security services, and that Mr Cameron’s rhetoric risked alienating moderate Muslims.

“He told us that this fight was about defending ‘western values’. I cannot think of any phrase, short of those used by George Bush during the Iraq war, which more damages our ability to win this battle,” he said.

[Avalonia]

They need to stay in whatever fly blown sh*t hole they chose to go to and never come back. ***** them

[DodgyAgent]

Terrorists have rights to you know. We had a hand in striking the match from illegal war with Iraq, we can't claim no responsibility with those nutters.

Ban on return of British jihadists

As the war was started by Scots why don't we send the returning "Jihadists" to Scotland for them to deal with

[scooterscot]

As the war was started by Scots why don't we send the returning "Jihadists" to Scotland for them to deal with

Because they'll be set upon, they know it and so stay away. London etc is free game.

[TykeMerc]

They need to stay in whatever fly blown sh*t hole they chose to go to and never come back. ***** them

Harsh, but not unreasonable.