The Times - UK (2022-06-13)

the times | Monday June 13 2022 13

News

A British woman who joined Islamic
State in Syria as a schoolgirl fears she
may receive the death penalty if put on
trial there.
Shamima Begum also revealed that
she believed that the second of
the two friends she travelled with had
been killed.
Her appeal to overturn the govern-
ment’s decision to strip her of British
citizenship was rejected by the Su-
preme Court last year.
Foreigners in the al-Roj detention
camp who are suspected of belonging
to the Islamist extremist group are
being told that trials for women will
start this summer.
Begum, 22, told The Mail on Sunday:
“I don’t want that, that can’t happen. I
don’t want to be tried in Syria.”
She said she feared being at the camp
“for ever”. Trials for male Islamic State

fighters captured by the Kurdish Syrian

Democratic Forces have begun, with

reports of some being executed or fac-

ing jail sentences of up to 20 years.

Begum was 15 when she travelled to

Syria with Amira Abase, 15, and Kadiza

Sultana, 16, who were fellow pupils at

Bethnal Green Academy in London.

Her three children with Yago Riedijk,

a Dutch-born Islamic State fighter,

posted on Facebook last Monday that

the film was “disparaging” and used

“sectarian narratives”. The Depart-

ment for Levelling Up posted a letter

online in which it accused Asim of

expressing “support for a campaign to

limit free expression”. The government

also alleged he had failed to condemn

“sectarian chanting” at protests.

Asim told The Times yesterday: “It is

a very flimsy excuse... I’m of the firm

opinion that to challenge and critique

the film is part of free speech.”

He said he condemned the anti-Shia

chanting heard at a Leeds protest in a

sermon at his Makkah mosque.

Asim said the reasoning “indicates

that they were only interested in

removing me from my role and used my

statement as a convenient excuse”.

Religion on film, letters, page 28

The work of a British university
researcher was cited in the manifesto of
the teenager who killed ten black
people in a racist shooting at a super-
market in the US last month, prompt-
ing warnings that “scientific racism is
back en vogue among white suprema-
cists”.
Research by Michael Woodley, 38,
which made highly controversial
claims about people from Africa, was
included in a document circulated by
the shooter online.
Woodley received a degree from
Royal Holloway, University of London,
where he wrote the paper that was cited
by Payton Gendron, who carried out
the massacre in Buffalo, New York. He

co-wrote a book about the global de-
cline of intelligence, stating a relation-
ship between ethnicity and cognitive
abilities.
Woodley has been affiliated with
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, one of
Belgium’s leading universities. Last
week it suspended its relationship with
him after a Belgian newspaper reported
a petition calling for the university to
halt its association with him.
Woodley, whose expertise is in plant
ecology but has written about genetics,
has raised concerns from other aca-
demics who study genetics.
Alex Mas Sandoval, a researcher in
population genetics at the University of
Bologna, started the petition and said
Woodley had a “history of spreading
racist, white supremacist theories”. He
told The Wall Street Journal: “Woodley
has been explicitly racist. He is ques-
tioning a consensus based on decades
of research.” He added that scientists
involved in the field of population ge-
netics and other related areas were

Michael Woodley

argued that

humans can be

divided into

subspecies

Imam loses government role

after criticising Islamic film

Kaya Burgess

Religious Affairs Correspondent

Begum fears death penalty in Syria

have died. Begum now claims she was

brainwashed and then sex-trafficked by

Islamic State. However, she had earlier

boasted of being a member of the

group’s al-Khansaa female “morality

police”, who had sewn bombers into

their suicide vests.

Begum’s supporters are likely to use

the reported threat of the death penalty

to pressure the UK government to

secure her return from Syria.

She has said Abase and Sultana were

her only friends at secondary school.

“I got [information] officially that she

[Abase] is dead from the last people who

came out of Baghuz [Baghuz Fawqani,

Islamic State’s final stronghold in

Syria],” Begum said. “She is not in the

camp, I’ve asked many people and I’m

finally believing she is dead.”

Sultana is believed to have been the

first British female member of Islamic

State to have died; she was killed in a

Russian air strike in 2016.

David Brown

An imam who supported a campaign to

have a film about the Prophet Muham-

mad’s daughter pulled from cinemas

has been dismissed from his role advis-

ing the government on Islamophobia.

Qari Asim was appointed in July 2019

and said in January that Boris Johnson’s

administration ignored efforts to start

his project to develop a definition of Is-

lamophobia for more than two years.

Cineworld announced last Wednes-

day it was cancelling showings of The

Lady of Heaven “to ensure the safety of

our staff and customers” after its release

sparked fury across the country over its

portrayal of the succession to Muham-

mad — a point of disagreement

between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Asim

Shamima Begum left Britain aged 15

UK academic

cited by racist

teenage killer

Ben Ellery “concerned about the misinterpreta-
tion of our findings” and he was “ap-
palled” that the gunman had tried to
use science to justify his actions.
Bethan Johnson, an extremism re-
searcher at the University of Cam-
bridge, said: “Whilst Woodley has no
direct connections to the shooter nor
does his work call for racial violence,
Woodley’s writings clearly contribute
to the hate necessary to enact it.
“Cloaked in the guise of scientific
methods and reasonable inferences
based on data interpretation, for years,
Woodley appears to have been not only
engaging with extreme ideas, but en-
trenching and validating them with a
research agenda pulled right out of a
classic hatemonger’s playbook.
“Scientific racism is back en vogue
among white supremacists, misogy-
nists, and extreme ethnonationalists.”
Woodley’s article cited by the gun-
man contains an argument that
humans can be divided into subspecies.
One table in which he compared
humans with animal species, including
jaguars and leopards, was used in the
Buffalo gunman’s manifesto.
Theories like the one Woodley as-
serted have long been a mainstay of
pseudoscientific attempts to justify
slavery, colonialism and Nazism that
have been widely rejected by contem-
porary mainstream academics.
A spokeswoman for Royal Holloway
said that Woodley completed a doctor-
ate in plant ecology there from 2007 to
2011, and that his 2010 article refer-
enced by the Buffalo gunman was
“written and published in a personal
capacity”. The article described the
author’s affiliation as “School of Biolog-
ical Sciences, Royal Holloway, Univers-
ity of London.”
Elsevier, a leading, mainstream aca-
demic publisher which produced the
journal that printed Woodley’s article,
said it was “urgently reviewing the 2010
paper” and that it would consider “any
necessary correction”. It would “closely
monitor” a review of his work being
carried out by the Belgian university.
Woodley did not respond to a request
for comment.

N

apoleon III, a

nephew of

Bonaparte,

became

France’s first

president in 1848 (Sara

Tor writes). But eight

years earlier, as Louis-

Napoleon, he had been

hauled before Bow Street

magistrates for duelling

on Wimbledon Common.

His opponent was his

cousin Count Léon,

Bonaparte’s illegitimate

son.

A new book on the

often-scandalous lives of

the Bonapartes has

revealed details of the

episode that nearly led to

the death on English soil

of one of France’s most

noted

leaders.

The British

Bonapartes, by

Edward Hilary Davis,

describes how, while

Louis-Napoleon was

living in London after

a failed coup attempt

in France, he was

involved in the duel

that was cut short owing

to a squabble over the

weapon.

Léon was in London,

one theory is, because he

was in dire need of

money and had agreed to

betray his cousin for cash.

“There’s a theory that

he may have been

employed by the French

Republican government,”

Davis said. “They might

have persuaded him to

engage his cousin in a

duel which would affect

his political standing

rather badly.”

Louis-Napoleon, irked

by the presence of his

troublesome cousin, had

tried to get Léon to travel

to Russia on the

pretence of an arms

deal. When Léon found

it was a ploy, he tried

to raise the matter but

was ignored. Léon

challenged him to a

duel and a gentlemen

could not say no, even

though duelling was

illegal.

For security reasons,

Scotland Yard officers

were tailing the pair, and

police “hid in the bushes

while the two men argued

over whether to use

swords or pistols”.

Davis said: “It is rather

fun to think that the fate

of France was partially

decided on Wimbledon

Common.”

Wimbledon

fe u d n e a rly

changed fate

of France

noted

leaders.

The British

Bonapartes, by

Ed d Hil D i

g

he

to

h

rath

Lo

by th

trou

tried

to R

pre

de

it

to

w

c

d

co

th

ille

F

Scot

were

polic

whil

over

swor

Napoléon III, top, the first D

president of France. He and

his cousin Count Léon came

to blows on Wimbledon

Common in London

ALAMY