UK shooting range under fire for using IS teen Shamima Begum’s image as a target

The target is a photo of Shamima Begu, who fled the UK to join IS.

Shamima Begum.

Shamima Begum. Source: Press Association

A UK shooting range is using a photo of Shamima Begu, a teenager who travelled from the UK to Syria to join IS, for target practice.

The teenager who was stripped of her British citizenship after leaving London to join the terror group has asked the government to re-evaluate her case and show "a bit more mercy" as she seeks to return to Britain.

Shamima Begum, 19, left to join IS when she was 15 but now wants to come back.
But following a BBC interview in which she pleaded for the British government to let her return, her image is being used as a target at the Ultimate Airsoft Range based in the north-west of England, near The Wirral.

"Our targets provide some fantastic reactions and conversations...bringing out the inner child in all," a spokesperson told the Victoria Derbyshire program.
"After watching footage of Shamima Begum being interviewed and the lack of remorse and empathy she shows, we chose to go ahead and run the targets."

The range said it had responded to "record numbers" of customers wanting Ms Begum as a target and images aired by the BBC showed a target Ms Begum with multiple bullet holes in it.

But the decision has been attacked for using her image. 

Wallasey MP, Angela Eagle, said the use of the photo was "wrong".
Ms Begum fears being left stateless after the UK announced she would be stripped of her citizenship. 

"I would like them (British politicians) to re-evaluate my case with a bit more mercy in their heart, you know," she told Sky News.

Asked whether she could change or be rehabilitated, she said: "I am willing to change".

Begum was found in a refugee camp in Syria last week, and her fate has sparked a dispute over the ramifications of leaving a 19-year-old mother with a jihadist fighter's child to fend for herself in a war zone.


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2 min read
Published 28 February 2019 10:52am
Source: SBS News

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