MOSCOW, October 19 (RIA Novosti) - The UK plan to view British Muslims joining the Islamic State’s paramilitary forces as cases of ‘high treason’, as outlined by Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Friday, wouldn’t be effective, according to Professor Peter Neumann of King’s College London, while a more diversified approach to those who return from the Middle East could do the trick.
Professor Neumann will address Parliament tomorrow, where he intendeds to speak about government-proposed punitive measures toward British citizens who joined the Islamic State’s paramilitary groups in the Middle East, as reported by the Independent. In his opinion, IS fighters that return from Iraq and Syria should be dealt with in accordance with a more diversified approach, as they generally fall into three categories: the dangerous, the disturbed and the disillusioned. While the dangerous returning fighters should undoubtedly be put in prison, the disturbed would require "psychological help more than prison", and the disillusioned “should be supported because they could become very powerful voices speaking out against Isis”, Professor Neumann says.
At the same time, harsher measures against the ex-IS fighters, some of whom are already back in the UK, would drive them further underground, and it would be increasingly hard for lawmen to retrieve these people. "The government does not know the identities and whereabouts of every single one of those 250 people [who have already returned from Syria]. If you have only the punitive approach then these people will not come forward", the Professor argues. Meanwhile an approach which took this fear into account and offered disillusioned former ISIS fighters the opportunity to cooperate with the government could be more productive potentially.
Professor Neumann goes on to mention that even if the government’s proposal is put into action, most ex-IS fighters may still evade punishment, as it would be hard to gather enough evidence to convict them all. On the other hand, putting the dangerous ones, the fanatics, in prison bears certain risks as well: “putting a large number of potentially highly radicalized people into a system where they can spread their ideology further”, the Professor says.
Professor Neumann argues that the government speaks a lot about the threats that ex-IS militants pose to the UK, but hardly does anything about it in practice. “The government says this is the greatest extremist threat that Britain has faced for a generation, yet at the same time, at the policy level we haven't seen the amount or the degree of engagement that would be necessary if it really was the biggest threat, so there's a disconnect here”, the expert says. The government needs to start taking measures already, Professor Neumann concludes, and those must be more sophisticated than just pushing forward simple-yet-hardcore proposals.
The government policy put forth by Secretary Hammond is that British citizens who fought for the Islamic State be prosecuted under an English treason law which dates back to 1361, the BBC reports. Hammond further explained that the British Jihadists have "sworn personal allegiance to the so-called Islamic State", which raises questions about whether "offenses of treason have been committed", which would effectively outlaw any British citizen proven to have joined IS, regardless of whether they personally committed any of the crimes that the Mideast Jihadi organization has gained infamy for.
