Authored by Uzay Bulut through The Gatestone Institute,

Whereas round 3,000 Yazidi kids and ladies are nonetheless being held captive by the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group, many within the Western media are portraying a former “ISIS bride” not solely as a sufferer however as a celeb.

The ISIS bride in query Shamima Begum, a British citizen who left the UK to hitch ISIS in Syria in 2015, and was later stripped of her British citizenship. Begum was chosen by The Occasions Journal within the UK to lionize on February 4, each on its cowl and in an eight-page characteristic. She is now a part of a glamorized “newswashing” marketing campaign to assist get her British citizenship again.

The UK’s Particular Immigration Appeals Tribunal is scheduled to rule this week on Begum’s enchantment in opposition to being stripped of her citizenship.

ISIS brides had been complicit in ISIS’s genocide and crimes in opposition to humanity. By no means thoughts that hostages had been hung the other way up after which burned alive, or locked in cages then lowered into water to drown, or crucified for hours “like Jesus;” or that kids had been crucified or bought as intercourse slaves; or that numerous others had been tortured, raped or lined as much as have their throats slit. By no means thoughts the beheadings of journalists reminiscent of James Foley or Steven Sotloff, or the Syrian scholar Khaled al-Asaad, 82, who was tortured for a month, then beheaded as a result of he refused to show over Palmyra’s priceless antiquities to ISIS. The checklist goes on….

The Free Yezidi Basis lately wrote of ISIS and Begum:

“Not solely terror loss of life cult, however mass-rape genocidal group. The choice to hitch was hers. Her actions contributed to unspeakable acts of brutality, which she would have continued had ISIS, Daesh not been militarily defeated.”

At its top, ISIS held a few third of Syria’s territory and 40% of Iraq’s. On June 29, 2014, ISIS chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi introduced the formation of a caliphate stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in Iraq. Wherever ISIS invaded, they introduced unspeakable loss of life and destruction, particularly to non-Muslim communities, together with Yazidis and Christians.

ISIS murdered 1000’s, and forcibly displaced a whole lot of 1000’s. ISIS additionally systematically dedicated crimes reminiscent of pressured conversions, hostage taking, rapes of youngsters and ladies, sexual slavery, theft, destruction, smuggling, disappearances and recruitment of boys as youngster troopers. Their strategies of violence not solely included beheadings and crucifixions, but additionally mutilations, dismemberment, stoning and forcing hostages to kneel on explosives. Numerous individuals turned refugees and stay displaced as a result of ISIS genocide.

By December 2017, ISIS had misplaced 95% of its territory, together with its two largest facilities: Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest metropolis, and the Syrian metropolis of Raqqa, its nominal capital.

Since March 2019, when ISIS was ousted from the final of the territory it had seized and because the fall of their caliphate, many ISIS terrorists (a few of whom are residents of Western nations) have been attempting to return to their house international locations.

The European Community for Investigation and Prosecution of Genocide, Crimes Towards Humanity and Battle Crimes (the “Genocide Community”) famous in a 2020 report:

“ISIS, which has been categorized as a terrorist group, perpetrated horrific acts of violence in armed conflicts in Northern Iraq and Syria. The problem of investigating and prosecuting its members and international terrorist fighters returning to their international locations of origin led most EU Member States to concentrate on stopping and punishing terrorism-related offenses. Nonetheless, ISIS mustn’t solely be thought-about as a terrorist group. ISIS has fulfilled standards in line with Worldwide Humanitarian Legislation as a celebration to a non-international armed battle in Iraq and Syria performing as an organized non-state armed group. Subsequently, its members and international terrorist fighters may very well be chargeable for committing struggle crimes and different core worldwide crimes.” [Emphasis added.]

The BBC is one other media outlet that appears to have an obsessive fascination for Begum, producing each a movie and podcast sequence concerning the previous ISIS member’s so-called journey to Syria. The broadcaster introduced on July 11, 2022:

“The BBC has at this time introduced a landmark documentary for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer and a 10-part audio sequence for Radio 5 Dwell and BBC Sounds, on the story of Shamima Begum. The podcast comes from the group behind the multi award-winning I am Not A Monster, the BBC’s most awarded podcast sequence.”

As an alternative of specializing in the genocidal crimes ISIS dedicated in opposition to its victims and interviewing the victims immediately, the BBC’s sequence and documentary largely take care of a shiny portrait of why and the way Begum joined ISIS and her subsequent life there.

BBC viewers forthrightly responded, in accordance to The Every day Mail on February 8:

“‘Why are the BBC giving Shamima Begum extra airtime?’: ‘Sickened’ viewers slam broadcaster for airing 90-minute documentary that ‘parades ISIS bride as a celeb’ simply weeks after it launched 10-part podcast ‘retracing her steps’.

“Viewers have vowed to cancel their tv licenses as they slammed final evening’s ‘sickening’ 90-minute Shamima Begum documentary on the BBC.”

The Free Yezidi Basis reported in 2019:

“Feminine members of the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) have actively engaged in terrorist exercise and gross human rights violations, and in lots of instances search to control lack of proof, lack of unbiased verification, or different means to plead for sympathy within the court docket of regulation and the court docket of public opinion to keep away from accountability. Most significantly, people who joined the terrorist and genocidal group should not be allowed to reshape the narrative in an effort to downplay or keep away from their very own company and duty for the horrors they’ve inflicted or facilitated.

“Feminine members of ISIS are sometimes perceived as being passive, naïve, and even as victims. This can be a harmful and wildly inaccurate characterization. The Netherlands Ministry of the Inside publication, ‘Jihadist girls, a risk to not be underestimated,’ states:

“‘The function that these jihadist girls play inside the jihadist motion shouldn’t be underestimated. In lots of instances, jihadist girls are a minimum of as devoted to jihadism as males. They pose a risk to the Netherlands by recruiting others, producing and disseminating propaganda, and elevating funds. Furthermore, they indoctrinate their kids with jihadist ideology. Ladies type a necessary a part of the jihadist motion, each within the Netherlands and within the battle space in Syria and Iraq.’

“The habits and actions of feminine ISIS members has been a topic of respectable authorized and coverage debate in addition to morbid fascination. This has been seen within the instances of the UK’s Shamima Begum, the American Hoda Mothana, and different such instances. When residents of international international locations joined ISIS and have both surrendered or fled from ISIS, critical debate over worldwide regulation has arisen. The truth that the alleged crimes occurred overseas do current real challenges for safety and justice officers by way of the gathering of proof and the development of strong, prosecutable instances. For the Yezidi neighborhood, it will be significant that the crimes dedicated by ISIS, together with these allegedly dedicated by ISIS girls, should not be forgotten…

“Ms. Begum, for instance, claimed that she was solely a housewife and didn’t take part in any heinous crimes or violation of human rights as an ISIS member. Some portrayed her as an harmless schoolgirl who was brainwashed, uninformed, and easily wished to return house to Britain. Some human rights proponents, politicians, and different commentators challenged the comparability of Ms. Begum to ISIS fighters. Nonetheless, proof now means that she was in actual fact a member of the ISIS ‘morality police, a bunch of ISIS girls which was an integral a part of ISIS’ terror and atrocity equipment, and was armed with an automated weapon on her patrols. The crimes allegedly dedicated by the morality police embody main human rights offenses, together with help to ISIS’ slave commerce of Yezidis.

“Two important factors: first, experiences from Yezidi survivors counsel that feminine members of ISIS had been accepting of ISIS enslavement and abuse in direction of Yezidis; and second, ISIS girls had been extra complicit within the fee of mass rape, human trafficking, crimes in opposition to humanity and genocide than they declare, and with higher company.”

On February 5, someday after The Occasions Journal launched its problem that includes Begum, information got here out that two Yazidi kids, aged two and 4, had been reportedly killed after a fireplace swept by way of a camp for “internally displaced individuals” (IDP) within the Kurdistan Area of Iraq. The rationale Yazidis are nonetheless residing in IDP camps is as a result of Begum’s group, ISIS, largely destroyed the Yazidi homeland of Sinjar in Iraq.

When ISIS invaded Sinjar in 2014, they murdered or kidnapped round 10,000 Yazidis, in line with the guide The Final Yezidi Genocide by Amy L Beam. Greater than 83 Yazidi mass graves have since been found in Sinjar. A whole lot of 1000’s of Yazidis needed to flee and turn out to be IDPs or refugees. Nearly 9 years later, a lot of Sinjar stays in rubble, making it troublesome for Yazidis to return. Because of this, roughly 180,000 Yazidis stay internally displaced, largely unfold throughout 15 IDP camps within the Kurdistan Area of Iraq.

In accordance to the Free Yezidi Basis, ISIS kidnapped, raped and enslaved 6,417 Yazidi girls and youngsters. Right this moment, greater than 2,693 Yazidis stay lacking. In 2021, a UN group investigating ISIS atrocities in Iraq established “clear and convincing proof” of genocide in opposition to the Yazidi individuals. Germany’s decrease home of parliament, the Bundestag, on January 19, 2023 acknowledged the 2014 bloodbath of Yazidis by ISIS in Iraq as a “genocide,” and referred to as for measures to help the persecuted minority.

An activist for Yazidi rights who lives in Iraq shared his opinions with Gatestone on the situation of anonymity for worry of retaliation. He mentioned he was in Sinjar in the course of the ISIS invasion in 2014:

“What we Yazidis count on from the worldwide neighborhood is help and solidarity, not digging into our wounds. ISIS criminals should face justice for what they’ve completed and practiced. We count on the West to carry ISIS accountable in court docket reasonably than placing them on the duvet of their journal. Such tales are notably troublesome for us as Yazidis as a result of these ISIS girls tortured and abused Yazidi girls whereas they had been in ISIS’s captivity.”

ISIS additionally devastated Christian communities in Iraq and Syria. At a 2015 listening to earlier than the Committee on Overseas Affairs of the US Home of Representatives, Sister Diana Momeka, of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena, in Mosul, Iraq, described ISIS’s struggle on non secular minorities:

“On June tenth, 2014, the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, invaded the Nineveh Plain which is the place Qaraqosh is positioned. Beginning with town of Mosul, ISIS overran one metropolis and city after one other giving the Christians of the area three selections: Convert to Islam; pay a tribute, a jizya, to ISIS; depart their metropolis, cities like Mosul, with nothing greater than the garments on their again. As this horror unfold all through the Nineveh Plain, by August 6, 2014, Nineveh was empty of Christians, and sadly, for the primary time because the seventh century A.D., no church bells rang for mass within the Nineveh Plain.

“From June 2014 ahead, greater than 120,000 individuals discovered themselves displaced and homeless within the Kurdistan area of Iraq forsaking their heritage and all that they had labored for over the centuries. This uprooting, this theft of all the pieces that the Christians owned, displaced them physique and soul, stripping away their humanity and dignity.”

The violence of ISIS was not restricted to Iraq and Syria. ISIS expanded into a world community, which has carried out assaults past the borders of its now-destroyed caliphate. On November 13, 2015, as an illustration, 130 individuals had been murdered and greater than 300 injured in a sequence of coordinated assaults in Paris, France. And in June 2016, a terrorist who pledged allegiance to ISIS murdered 49 individuals at a homosexual nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

The query is: Why are some huge Western media companies clearly siding with a genocidal terror group and never with its harmless victims?

Different advocates for survivors of Islamist terrorism have additionally denounced the style some Western media painting ISIS members. Juliana Taimoorazy, the founding president of the Iraqi Christian Reduction Council, has been serving to survivors of Islamist terrorism, together with ISIS, since 2007. She advised Gatestone:

“I feel it is a slap within the face of all those that suffered within the arms of terrorism, not simply ISIS however different loss of life cults reminiscent of Boko Haram. This can be a spit within the face of all these whose family members had been murdered, and I don’t imply solely Yazidis, Assyrians or Nigerians, however all of the harmless Westerners who perished to Islamic terrorism reminiscent of in France, the UK, the US and elsewhere. Media has completely misplaced its ethical values. What’s sadder, to me is that we, as a society, have turn out to be desensitized to issues that had been as soon as outrageous. We’re beat to simply accept and never converse up or take critical motion in opposition to what’s unjust.”