Some court activity came up in the news of Germany this morning, which has a bit of a twist to it.
Back around five years ago, with various Islamic Germans running off to the civil war in Iraq and Syria....they made up this law and oddly enough....got enough votes to pass it.
The law says if you leave the country and go participate in the war (all in a willing fashion)....if you try to return, and it's confirmed of your membership in the IS state....you will do prison-time in Germany.
In some cases, as Germans 'woke' up in the war and kinda realized the mess they'd gotten themselves into.....they found ways to return to Germany, face court action, accept a general sentence which was built more like a rehab and de-brainwashing situation than a real prison system. In most of the cases, the authorities saw some reason to be reasonable, and the sentence would be in the range of two years.
One can argue over this tactic, but they had to do something to discourage young men and women from running off to the war. My suspicion is that the law didn't change anything, and it simply became more of a problem for those who realized how screwed-up that the war was.
Well....this ISIS German female came up in the last year or two (having been in Syria/Iraq for four years. The authorities added up the membership in the militia and her actions, and today....the regional court of Stuttgart (the higher branch) dumped five years on the 32-year old lady. Based on comments from the journalist....the lady's lawyer was hoping for a lesser deal (maybe in the two to three year range).
What got the sentence up to around the max? Well....she ran a blog during this period of the war, and featured pictures and generalized propaganda....all pro-stuff, and it acted more or less like recruiting material. I suspect if she'd just kept her mouth shut, and avoided pictures and emphasizing the positive nature of ISIS....this would have been a marginal sentence.
Fair? Here's the thing, people have freedom to determine their path in life, and it would be one clear path to say that a 15-year old went and did something but needed have a simple life lesson (maybe some common sense and de-brain-washing business). But after about age twenty....as an adult, you ought to be clearly thinking about your actions and how they relate to the landscape. In this case, she didn't just participate in this civil war.....she advertised it, and did recruitment-like stories. For the Germans, they have to send a message about this behavior.
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