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DUBAI: Former BBC journalist Mishal Husain, now editor-at-large at Bloomberg Weekend, has questioned the media’s sense of duty of care toward Shamima Begum and whether she would have been treated differently if she were not Muslim.

Speaking on Tuesday at the 2025 Romanes Lecture, a free, public annual lecture at the University of Oxford, Husain said it has been six years since the chair of the UK-based Independent Press Standards Organization said “that he thought Muslims were on occasion written about in the newspapers in ways Jews or Catholics would not be.”

In her speech titled “Empire, Identity and the Search for Reason,” she gave the example of Shamima Begum, saying it was worth asking whether she would have been perceived the same way if she had not been Muslim.

Begum, aged 15 at the time, was one of three girls who left London in 2015 to join Daesh in Syria.

Four years later, The Times tracked her down and interviewed her when she was nine months pregnant.

“The callousness of her words in that interview — including her saying she had been unmoved by the sight of a captured fighter’s severed head in a bin — prompted widespread revulsion,” Husain said.

Shortly after, there began a “scramble” to get the first TV interview, and both Sky and BBC reached out to her, she added.

Husain highlighted the media’s lack of empathy for Begum’s state. She had lost two children to illness and malnutrition, and the third was born just hours before one of her TV appearances.

She said that “one broadcaster said their correspondent had ‘tracked down the IS bride in a hospital just hours after she gave birth,’” and that the other recorded the segment when her son was just 3 days old, “the distinctive cry of a newborn audible off camera as she spoke.”

She added: “When I watched these interviews, I saw something that appeared to go entirely unnoticed in editorial decision-making — or was regarded as unimportant.

“I saw a teenage mother, only just postpartum.”

Husain recounted her own experience giving birth in the UK, where she had the help and support of family members and medical facilities. Even then, she said, she was “in no fit state to give any interview in the weeks, let alone the hours or days, after those births.

“And certainly not an interview of consequence to the rest of my life, conducted without advice, representation — or even access to information.”

Husain said she found it difficult to reconcile the media coverage with a sense of duty of care toward the interviewee, to assess “whether an interviewee is in a position to give informed consent, or in a place where they can speak freely.”

She highlighted how news organizations had failed to emphasize the ways in which Daesh targeted and enticed young girls, providing little context for how Begum became radicalized.

In late 2015, Husain was given an official briefing on the “online material used by IS to entice girls to join them,” and it was “clever and visually attractive,” including emojis, imagery and messages designed to appeal to teenage girls.

She added: “Little of this ever emerged publicly. Questions about grooming or entrapment have rarely gained currency.”

Although Husain has never met Begum, she said she often thinks of her. Even now, 10 years later, “we still don’t know how her story ends,” as “she remains in Syria, stripped of her British citizenship and with little hope of securing another passport,” Husain said.

LONDON: Human Rights Watch on Monday called Lebanon’s decision to legally assess the killing of Lebanese journalists by Israel a “fresh opportunity to achieve justice.”

Nearly two years after a deadly attack by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, the Lebanese Cabinet instructed the Justice Ministry on Thursday to explore legal options to hold Israel accountable for such attacks.

“Israel’s apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdullah should have served as a crystal clear message for Lebanon’s government that impunity for war crimes begets more war crimes,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW.

“Since Issam’s killing, scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes.”

On the second anniversary of Abdallah’s death, Information Minister Paul Morcos submitted a proposal based on a report by the independent Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research examining the circumstances of the killing.

The initiative — backed by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam — was welcomed by Reporter Without Borders as “an important first step,” which called on Beirut to refer the case to the International Criminal Court for war crimes investigation.

Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist, was killed by Israeli tank shells while filming cross-border exchanges.

Six other journalists were wounded, including AFP photographer Christina Assi, who lost a leg.

Independent investigations by HRW, Reuters, AFP, Amnesty International and RSF concluded that the attack was “deliberately” launched by Israeli forces on “clearly visible media members.”

The organizations condemned the attack as a violation of international law and called for a war crimes investigation.

A UNIFIL investigation similarly found that “an Israeli tank killed Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah by firing two 120mm rounds at clearly identifiable journalists,” violating international law.

Despite these findings, no legal proceedings have been initiated in Lebanon or Israel.

Israeli authorities deny wrongdoing, stating they are “reviewing the incident,” while no international inquiry has yet commenced.

HRW said that Issam Abdallah’s death is one among numerous violations documented on Lebanese territory by Israeli forces that could amount to war crimes.

Beyond deliberate attacks on journalists, HRW has recorded repeated assaults on peacekeepers, medics, and civilian infrastructure, including the targeted demolition of homes and the destruction of large areas of critical public services.

The group also reported widespread use of white phosphorus — a wax-like incendiary weapon — by Israeli forces in populated areas, whose deployment is widely considered illegal under international humanitarian law.

The previous Lebanese government requested the ICC extend its jurisdiction over Lebanon, which is not a member state. Under Article 12 of the Rome Statute, non-member states can accept ICC jurisdiction for specific crimes by submitting a declaration.

However, that request was rescinded, and the current government, in office since February 2025, has yet to submit a new application.

Thursday’s announcement represents a decisive step by Lebanon’s new Cabinet toward accountability.

“Lebanon’s government can and should honor victims’ demands for justice by enabling the investigation of unlawful attacks and war crimes that caused untold damage and suffering,” Kaiss said.