BBC slammed for giving ‘terrorist’ Shamima Begum a PODCAST where jihadi bride says ‘I’m so much more than ISIS’
THE BBC has been slammed for giving “terrorist” Shamima Begum a podcast in which she says “I’m so much more than ISIS”.
In the 10-part podcast, the former jihadi bride speaks about joining the bloodthirsty terror group, who beheaded British captives.
The now 23-year-old Begum now lives in a refugee camp after she travelled from her home in east London aged 15 with two friends.
But already the podcast has sparked outrage with one critic accusing the BBC of “wasting” licence payers’ money on giving a platform to someone “who accepts she joined a terror group”.
Another said: “If you join a ‘terror group’ that has committed atrocities such as mass killings, abductions and beheadings, then you are a terrorist.”
Commentator Wasiq Wasiq also questioned why she was given a platform “while the victims of grooming gangs are still trying to be heard and get justice”.
The BBC has said the series – entitled “I’m Not a Monster” – will give a “full account” of Begum’s story and insist her story will not go “unchallenged”.
In the podcast Begum tells investigative journalist Josh Baker about travelling to the Syria to join the crazed jihadis, infamous for their brutality.
Begum accepts that she joined a terrorist group and admits the public see her “as a danger, as a risk, as a potential risk to them, to their safety, to their way of living”.
But she insists: “I’m not this person that they think I am being perceived as in the media, you know I’m just so much more than ISIS and I’m so much more than everything I’ve been through.
“I’ve always been a more secluded person. That’s why it’s so hard the way my life has turned out being all over the media because I’m not a person that likes a lot of attention on me.”
Begum also talks about being given detailed instructions by ISIS including how to avoid detection during the journey.
She says she stuffed her suitcase with her favourite chocolate because she feared she wouldn’t be able to get hold of any once she was in the Middle East.
“Mint Aero, mint chocolate, like a lot,” she says.
“You can find a lot of things in this country but you cannot find mint chocolate. It’s a tragedy. Tragedy.”
The BBC said: “This is not a platform for Shamima Begum to give her unchallenged story.
“This is a robust, public interest investigation into who she really is and what she really did.”
Begum is currently in the Al-Roj prison camp in northern Syria, run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, which she moans is “worse than a prison”.
She is fighting the Home Office’s decision to remove her British citizenship.
After travelling to Syria, Begum wed an ISIS fighter and had three children, who have all since died.
But after the evil regime collapsed, she ended up in a refugee camp.
And soon after, then Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped her of her UK citizenship to stop her from ever coming back.
Begum has previously told how she had no regrets about joining the death cult and was not fazed by seeing discarded heads in bins.
She also told how she had sewn ISIS bombers into their suicide vests.
But she insists she had changed – claiming she was “young and naïve” when she decided to leave the UK and join ISIS.