A British 18-year-old girl has become the first person to be
convicted for attempting to join the campaign against ISIS in Syria. She is set
to spend 21 months behind bars.
Silhan Özçelik from north London fled her home and took a
train to Brussels, leaving a 25-minute farewell video address for her family. In
the video, she said she was eager to join the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
women’s military forces and fight against Islamic State (previously ISIS/ISIL).
She also left a written note to her family, which said: “I
have been thinking about this for many years. I have been wanting to join for
many years. Furthermore I am leaving my diary, and it is written in my diary …
I wrote, every minute, how much I wanted to become a militant, how much I
wanted to become a guerrilla, are all written in those pages.”
The girl added that she was “passionately engaged” with the
PKK’s ideas, wanted to become a “bride of the mountains” and was drawn by the
fact that women played an active role in the party.
The jury listening to her case in the Old Bailey Central
Criminal Court were told that the teenager had wanted to join the PKK for five
years, since she watched a film called “Comrade Beritan” about a PKK female
guerrilla fighter, who killed herself jumping off a cliff, preferring death to
being captured.
Also, posters and collages showing PKK slogans and female
guerrillas were discovered in the girl’s bedroom.
In court, however, Özçelik claimed she had fabricated the
PKK story, as she wanted to run away with a 28-year-old man and avoid shame for
her traditional Kurdish family.
The girl told the court that she believed making the video
was “cool,” and if things didn’t work out with the man in Belgium, she would be
welcomed back by her friends and family.
