Some young Britons prefer to live under Daesh: Experts
Hundreds of young British men and women are seeking to flee the UK in the hope of having better lives in parts of Syria that are controlled by the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group, analysts warn.
According to Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters, an organization that works on counter-radicalization and community cohesion initiatives, an alarming number of British teenage girls are so fed up with life in the UK that they are now considering to leave the country altogether, the Guardian reported Saturday.
“We are looking at hundreds of young women who’d get up and go if they had the chance, as well as hundreds of men. What I am hearing and when I speak to people is that there is still a pool of young people who, if they had the means to go to Syria, would do so,” said Mughal.
Fear of getting caught during the difficult trip was the biggest reason that Mughal said keeps these young women from leaving their country.
The issue came into spotlight this week when it was reported on Thursday that Kadiza Sultana, 17, was killed in an air strike in Syria after arriving there from London in February.
Kadiza, who traveled to Syria with her friends Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, was feared to have been radicalized by Daesh online propaganda.
British authorities estimate that around 850 UK nationals have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the terror groups that are wreaking havoc in those countries.
The issue has raised fresh doubts about the effectiveness of London’s so-called anti-radicalism measures.
In 2014, the UK government proposed the so-called Counter Terrorism and Security Bill in a pledge to fight extremism.
But according to British daily the Independent, the bill, which was later passed by the UK parliament, gave rise to Islamophobia by framing terrorism as a “Muslim problem.”
The over-exaggerated image of radicalism that was painted in the legislation made hatred and violence toward Muslims “a social norm” and further alienated British Muslims in the society.
Tell MAMA, a group based in London that monitors anti-Muslim incident, said in its annual report in July that Islamophobic incidents in the UK increased by 326 percent last year, rising from 146 to 437 cases.
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