LONDON: The Dutch husband of Shamima Begum, the British-born teenager who ran away to join Daesh in Syria in 2015, has said he wants her to return to the Netherlands with him.
Yago Riedijk and Begum married days after she arrived inside Daesh-held territory aged 15.
Riedijk, 27, is being held in a Kurdish detention center in north-eastern Syria. He faces a six-year jail term for joining a terror organization if he returns to the Netherlands.
In an interview with the BBC, Riedijk admitted fighting for the group but says he now wants to return home with his wife and their newborn son.
Riedijk said he rejected Daesh and had tried to leave the group, according to the BBC. He added that he was imprisoned in Raqqa and tortured after the extremists accused him of being a Dutch spy.
Begum, now aged 19, and Riedijk escaped from the town of Baghouz, the last Daesh-held area in eastern Syria, as the terror group’s territory collapsed.
Her husband surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters, and Begum and their newborn son Jerah ended up among 39,000 people at the Al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria.
Begum was moved to another camp nearer the Iraqi border after receiving death threats.
She had earlier said that she wanted to return to Britain but her British citizenship was revoked on security grounds.
When asked if he thought marrying a 15-year-old girl was acceptable, Riedijk told the BBC: “To be honest, when my friend came and said there was a girl who was interested in marriage, I wasn’t that interested because of her age, but I accepted the offer anyway.
“We sat down and she seemed in a good state of mind. It was her own choice; she was the one who asked to look for a partner for her.
“Then I was invited and, yeah, she was very young and it might have been better for her to wait a bit, but she didn’t — she chose to get married and I chose to marry her.”
Shamima Begum’s Dutch husband wants to return to the Netherlands with her
Shamima Begum’s Dutch husband wants to return to the Netherlands with her
- Riedijk, 27, is being held in a Kurdish detention center in north-eastern Syria
- Begum was moved to another camp nearer the Iraqi border after receiving death threats
Kurds in Turkiye protest over Syria Aleppo offensive
- Several hundred people gathered in Diyarbakir while hundreds more joined a protest in Istanbul
- In the capital, Ankara, DEM lawmakers protested in front of the Turkish parliament
DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: Protesters rallied for a second day in Turkiye’s main cities on Thursday to demand an end to a deadly Syrian army offensive against Kurdish fighters in Aleppo, an AFP correspondent said.
Several hundred people gathered in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkiye’s main Kurdish-majority city, while hundreds more joined a protest in Istanbul that was roughly broken up by riot police who arrested around 25 people, the pro-Kurdish DEM party said.
In the capital, Ankara, DEM lawmakers protested in front of the Turkish parliament, denouncing the targeting of Kurds in Aleppo as a crime against humanity.
The protesters demanded an end to the operation by Syrian government forces against the Kurdish-led SDF force in Aleppo, where at least 21 people have been killed in three days of violent clashes.
It was the worst violence in the northwestern city since Syria’s Islamist authorities took power a year ago. The fighting erupted as both sides struggled to implement a March agreement to integrate autonomous Kurdish institutions into the new Syrian state.
In Istanbul, hundreds of protesters waving flags braved heavy rain near Galata Tower to denounce the Aleppo operation under the watchful eye of hundreds of riot police, an AFP correspondent said.
But some of the slogans drew a sharp warning from the police, who moved to roughly break up the gathering and arrested some 25 people, DEM’s Istanbul branch said.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the police attack on the Rojava solidarity action in Sishane. This brutal intervention, oppression, and violence against our young comrades is unacceptable!” the party wrote on X, demanding the immediate release of those arrested.
At the Diyarbakir protest during the afternoon, protesters carried a huge portrait of the jailed PKK militant leader Abdullah Ocalan, an AFP video journalist reported.
“We urge states to act as they did for the Palestinian people, for our Kurdish brothers who are suffering oppression and hardship,” Zeki Alacabey, 64, told AFP in Diyarbakir.
Although Turkiye has embarked on a peace process with the PKK, it remains hostile to the SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, seeing it as an extension of the banned militant group and a major threat along its southern border.
It has repeatedly demanded that the SDF merge into the main Syrian military. A defense ministry official said on Thursday that Ankara was ready to “support” Syria’s operation against the Kurdish fighters if needed.
Demonstrators had already taken to the streets in several major Turkish cities with Kurdish majorities on Wednesday, including Diyarbakir and Van, according to images broadcast by the DEM.
