r/AskBrits • u/PsychologicalBend508 Brit 🇬🇧 • 23h ago

This is lunacy, right?

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An Islamic terrorist who belonged to Al-Qaeda and later Isis has been spotted shopping at King Charles’ local Co-op.

Mohammed Yaseen was free to walk the streets near Windsor Castle after he was allowed to stay in Britain on human rights grounds.

Yaseen was part of the Al Qaeda group that beheaded Briton Ken Bigley before joining a unit in Isis that carried out stonings, beheadings and mass executions.

He was released from prison last week after serving just six months of a two-year sentence for illegally entering the country on a small boat, following a near five-year prison term in Germany for his Isis membership.

The Foreign Office has raised concerns he could face ‘mistreatment’ if he were returned to Iraq because of his terrorist past, the Mail on Sunday reports.

Experts have said Yaseen could cost the taxpayer £85,000 as the Home Office pays for his stay in accomodation and his food allowance.

Chris Philp, Shadow Home Secretary, said: ‘We are paying through the nose to feed, clothe and house individuals who pose a clear threat. If Andy Burnham took this seriously, he would deport this man at once.’

A court in Germany heard in 2020 that Yaseen was involved in bomb attacks that killed US troops in Iraq.

He also served as a security guard for Isis, including during at least two mass executions where the victims included children.

Yaseen was intercepted last December by Border Force. He gave officials a false name before routine biometric checks revealed his true identity.

At his trial at Winchester Crown Court, prosecutor Steven Molloy said Yaseen had a ‘deeper and lengthy involvement in terrorism and Islamic extremist ideology’.

It is understood that Yaseen was cleared to walk around town with an ankle tag and observe a 6pm to 6am curfew.

However these restrictions did not stop him going to Windsor Great Park or to the castle.

Yaseen grew up in western Iraq and became a member of Islamic State of Iraq, a franchise of Al Qaeda, aged just 16.

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u/Unusual_Technology66 23h ago

Yeah, but even terrorists have human rights. This is exactly why we need the ECHR, so people like Mohammed Yaseen, who guarded executions, can live safely near Windsor Castle, fully supported by the taxpayer, with a quiet family life, while we carefully protect him from the consequences of his own actions. Obviously the system working as intended.

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u/throwaway2462828 22h ago

I'm not going to defend terrorists. But, where do you draw the line on which humans should have human rights?

The justice system already restricts the rights that criminals have, the restrictions already vary dependent on the severity of the crime. By saying someone shouldn't have human rights, that goes as far as meaning they shouldn't have the right of access to water. How far do we want to go in stripping a person's rights?

Also, let's say you draw the line at terrorists. What does that mean? Obviously members of ISIS or any other known terrorist organisation. But does it apply to everyone who is charged under the terrorism act? What if a person is actually innocent, but found guilty and because they're strippes of their rights they don't have the right to appeal?

This comes down to whether you think human rights should exist. If you do then, without exception, everyone should have them. And, yes, that, unfortunately, includes terrorists. If you don't then, well, I guess you can feel however you feel with wanting to erase human rights.

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u/Marek87pl 22h ago

You argue for universal human rights while the post author treats human rights like voting rights.

Prisoners in UK loose their voting rights so terrorists, murderers, rapists, human traffickers that were convicted with overwhelming evidence can be stripped of human rights in similar way.

The government's role is to provide safety to it's citizens. CITIZENS, not foreign actors, and especially not foreign terrorists. We can discuss the way terrorists are treated after this point is covered.

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u/throwaway2462828 22h ago

If human rights are like voting rights, then they're not really human rights are they? Human rights have to be universal, otherwise they're not really human rights are they?

One of the government's roles is to provide safety to its citizens. Also to provide safety to tourists, people who are here because of their family, because of work. I'm sure you will agree with those, so where do you draw the line on who should be safe whilst in this country?

Another role of the government is to ensure that people in this country have a chance at living a good life. Another role of the government is to help facilitate peace across the globe (war in other countries affects things here). There are a lot of things that the government is responsible for, and a lot of different groups of people that they're responsible for.

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u/Marek87pl 21h ago

No, safety of citizens is not "one of the roles" it's the first and foremost role and the reason why the governments were even formed!

Any obligation beyond that is secondary. It's all a pyramid of priorities and worrying for safety of foreign terrorists should be last on this list.

Disregarding the safety of citizens is a breach of social contract and a main reason why populist parties around Europe are gaining power.

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u/throwaway2462828 11h ago

Yeah there is an order of priorities, and safety of people within the country is the first priority. But it's not the only priority.

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago

The comparison collapses because we are in breach of our human rights obligations by depriving prisoners of the right to vote.

Human rights do not change their value or their applicability on the basis of your misinformed opinions.

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u/slamjam25 21h ago

Are we in breach of our human rights obligations by not letting six years olds vote? They are human after all.

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago

No.

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u/slamjam25 21h ago

So these human rights don’t apply to all humans, glad we cleared that up!

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago

Correct. Some human rights have qualifications. One example is that the right to vote is qualified by obvious rules around age requirements, which necessarily means some humans are not (yet) entitled to exercise it.

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u/slamjam25 21h ago

And in the UK “not being in prison” is another one of those qualifications when it comes to voting.

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago

No. We do give some prisoners the right to vote. Being a prisoner does not deprive someone of the vote in the UK; a blanket ban was previously ruled to be unlawful under international law, and we adjusted it accordingly.

Whether the current regime is compliant with international human rights law is a matter of ongoing debate, and the UN among others are not convinced it is.

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u/Marek87pl 21h ago edited 21h ago

No, you're not. Right to vote is a qualified non absolute right. There are many qualified or limited human rights and being a terrorists should be a reason to waver some of them.

Edit: oh and by the way - the prisoner deprived himself of his rights by braking the law and is the one responsible for it.

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago edited 21h ago

I was referring to the blanket ban on prisoners voting which was ruled unlawful and subsequently dropped by the UK.

You don't seem at all concerned to establish some element of rule of law or proportionality here, to check for example if he is still 'a terrorist'. He left ISIS after one year, around 2014, and was convicted of his membership 6 years later and sentenced to over 4 years in prison. He was then convicted of entering the UK illegally and sentenced to 2 years, and has since been recalled for breaching his license conditions.

Should I assume you are still defecating in your underwear because you did so as a child?

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u/Marek87pl 20h ago

This is pure gold. I have to be sarcastic here, sorry.

Let him in guys! He was in ISIS and al quada but he's better now! Sure, the first thing he did once he got here was break the law but we cannot send him back! It's too dangerous for him! Instead, let's endanger our own population by letting this murderer loose. Let him mingle and enrich our society, maybe even let him be an influence for our local Muslims, no way that can backfire right? It's not like he was an active member of a murderous regime, he is for sure a nice moderate Muslim, he is not a terrorist anymore after all, sure he started when he was 16, took part in beheadings and executions but who didnt? It was just a phase, lets be proportional here.

In political science governments are established based on social contracts between ruling body and its citizens of which protection and security is the foremost obligation.

This is a blatant example of that contract being broken. You protect a beast that to quote the courtroom "poses a risk to all of UK" with complete disregard to the safety of own citizens. He came here illegally, he falsified his identity, he is a dangerous radical but let's have him here because his safety is more important than yours. What a parody... fit for Monthy Python really.

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u/being-a-noob 21h ago

You are defending terrorists. People like you are more interested in wishy washy ideology, debating and points scoring rather than common sense. This guy has no right to be in the UK. We are not responsible for the consequences of his own actions back in his home country. He is a drain on the country’s resources and a safety risk and that’s a fact. No reason for him to be on British soil. Sympathy for terrorists is stupid and dangerous, like a cow defending a butcher.

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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 20h ago

Not a brit, but just gonna add to it, why are his human rights paid by British dime?

There a like 30 countries between Iraq and Britain 

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u/TheMassaB 19h ago

Wrong thread.

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u/Expensive_Peace8153 22h ago

But 5 years for war crimes is way too unduly lenient and if a UK judge had issued that sentence then it would have been appealed and amended to something more appropriate. 

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u/throwaway2462828 21h ago

I agree with this, the sentence was too lenient. But it was the sentence he was given, and would it be right for him to face multiple sentences for the same crimes just because he's in a different country? I genuinely don't know how to feel about this in this case, but I don't like the path it could lead down (say there's a crime that could only be given 5 years for, e.g. some type of fraud, and the criminal had a relatively high profile in opposing their current government - then other governments with the same political tendencies could collude with them and they could keep the person in prison for 5 years in one country, then send them to another for 5 years, then to another). I know that example sounds far fetched but things always end up going to the extreme

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago

He wasn't given five years for war crimes.

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u/Expensive_Peace8153 21h ago

True. He was prosecuted for a bomb plot against US forces, which is just regular war. In which case he still needs to be put on trial, convicted, and to serve more time for being involved with the beheadings and shit. 

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago

Did you pluck this from your arse? Where does it say he was prosecuted for a bomb plot against US forces?

He was tried and convicted for membership of ISIS.

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u/Expensive_Peace8153 21h ago

"A court in Germany heard in 2020 that Yaseen was involved in bomb attacks that killed US troops in Iraq. " 

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 21h ago edited 21h ago

That's a 'quote' which does not appear in Google searches; it is not a citation. Please provide the original source.

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u/Expensive_Peace8153 18h ago

It's in the original post in this thread, though unhelpfully the author didn't link to the actual article. 

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u/Successful-Yak-5537 6h ago

Yeah, it appeared in the Metro and appears to be complete bullshit, like most else of that 'news article'

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u/Unusual_Technology66 21h ago

For a start, anyone who knowingly supports or is involved in the religious executions of children.

This is no longer the dark ages. People who do this need to be removed from soceity until the idea of justifying killings or torture in the name of religion is forgotten.

Those who strip the innocent of their rights and lives deserve to lie in the same pit they helped create.

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u/EBknows 21h ago

"I'm not going to defend terrorists...but". There's always a but with some people 🙄