A court in Ireland has a found a woman guilty of membership in ISIL, even though there is no clear evidence that she actually gave physical support to ISIL or committed any other specific crime. It was a white woman, an Irish citizen, who had formerly been a solider in Ireland's army. She had converted to Islam. Much more could be said about that. This was the only evidence against her: She had converted to Islam She made a public statement on the internet pledging her support for ISIL She expressed a desire on an Islamic Facebook page to live under Islamic law and to die a "martyr" (that last part really is not that uncommon in many branches of mainstream Islam). She had travelled to live in Syria (at a time when ISIL controlled a large swath of territory in the country, and there were many foreign citizens going there to fight on behalf of ISIL) After failing to convince her husband to join her, she divorced him and married a UK citizen who also went to Syria, who was involved in armed patrols for ISIL. So she was a radical Muslim wife. The defense argued that the only clear and solid evidence that she had actually provided any assistance to ISIL is that she had kept up a home for her husband, and that it was a stretch to say that this constituted supporting the group. The court decided not to find her guilty of a separate charge of "financing terrorism". She had sent 800 euros (about 900 USD) to help pay for medical treatment for a Syrian man in Turkey. The court accepted that there was probable reason to believe that this money may have been for humanitarian reasons, rather than supporting terrorism. Three judges at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin have found former soldier Lisa Smith guilty of joining the ISIL (also known as ISIS) armed group in Syria. Smith, aged 40, wept in the dock as Judge Tony Hunt on Monday read the panel’s decision, which was delivered after a nine-week trial. Court in Ireland finds ex-soldier guilty of ISIL membership | ISIL/ISIS News | Al Jazeera The issue here is that, in my opinion, the evidence was not really solid that she had actually broken the law. This type of evidence is very questionable. Although ISIL was a very bad group, so it is understandable why they might be applying lower standards of evidence. This woman should have had the legal right to express her opinions, and to live in Syria, and even to be the radical Muslim wife of a man who happened to be in a terrorist group. I can of course understand why they convicted her, and maybe I am just letting my Libertarian principles cloud common sense on this one, but it seems to me that, technically, there is not really evidence that she did anything that she should not be granted a legal right to do. So it is paradoxically both "obvious" that she should have been convicted, and simultaneously what should be a clear violation of legal principles that she was. Principles versus pragmatics. Of course I am sure no one will agree with me, since the Left tends not to really understand the concept of principles, and the Right has no problem with a radical Muslim who associates with terrorists, and may likely have been one, getting punished. This is just another case of a stupid white woman getting indoctrinated into radical Islam. That article does not say but I would guess she probably got indoctrinated through connections made with her first husband, who may have been Muslim. That's usually how it happens in these cases. That first husband was just not radical enough to want to go to Syria and live under ISIL.
ISIL is a terrorist group that commited slavery and genocide against many minority ethnic groups such Yazidis. She didn't commited crimes herself, but women of ISIL have made ISIL possible, no state could have functionned only relying on men. Furthermore many former ISIL slaves have testified that jihadists wife were no less cruel toward ISIL sex slaves. The proves of their crimes are in the mass graves of Iraq and many of their victims are dead. Getting the proves in Iraq is hard, even more in Syria. There is no pity to be expressed toward such wicked individuals, even when they didn't get their hands on crimes directly, because such pity is cruelty toward the victims they persectued.
Interesting perspective. She kept the house for her terrorist husband, she provided him comfort and sex, probably tried to churn out terrorist babies for the cause. And this wasn't even her already-existing husband who just later became a terrorist; she intentionally divorced her old husband to marry a new terrorist husband.
True, but on the other hand, maybe the slaves got raped less because some of the men had wives with them. If those Muslim wives had not been there, maybe even more slaves would have been taken, and they would have been raped more. And let's remember not all the ISIL members took slaves. I know, but in the legal area of criminal justice there is the question about the fairness of group accountability, when it is not known which specific individuals in the group committed specific crimes. Is it fair and justice to hold this woman accountable for crimes committed by other ISIL members? Is the evidence great enough to hold her accountable for crimes we do not know that she specifically committed?
For people of Syria or Iraq who lived there and have been forced to join ISIL, it wouldn't be fair. But she decided to join this organisation and so, she participated to their crimes, in an undirect manner. Joining an organization that do genocides or slavery is helping them, even if your role is meager. Then you should considered be as such and judged for enabling those acts.
Is that really fair or justice though? I suppose they might assume that she moved to Syria to help ISIL in some way, but we do not really know for certain how she helped them, or whether she even did actually help them. She might have just wanted to live under ISIL (crazy as that sounds), or help them if she was able to, even though an opportunity to do that never actually arose.
If you join an organization like that, you enable them, if you enable them, then you share a responsibility of their crimes. So yes, I think it's just to be judged for that. I think that responsibility can go beyond the acts you commit directly.
I'm having difficulty seeing the logical connection there. How did she "enable them"? What does that word really mean in this statement?
