Moazzam Begg

Early life and education Moazzam Begg was born in Sparkhill in 1968, and grew up in Moseley, both suburbs of Birmingham. His father, Azmat Begg, was born in British India and lived in Pakistan before emigrating with his wife to Great Britain. Begg's mother died when he was six, and his father initially worked in Britain as a bank manager. Begg holds dual UK–Pakistani citizenship. Begg later attended Moseley Secondary School. During secondary school, he became a member of the Lynx gang, a Birmingham street gang. He said "we did things that no good Muslim should," but stated he rarely did anything violent. Begg attended Solihull College, and later the University of Wolverhampton, where he studied Law for two years, which he did not enjoy and did not complete his degree. UK and travels to Islamic countries, 1993–98 On a family holiday to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in his late teens, Begg became interested in Islam. Begg first met Khalil Deek in Bosnia. Begg also tried to travel to Chechnya, in the early 1990s during its war with Russia. While he thought that "fighting wasn't out of the question," he says that he did not participate in the armed struggle, but did give financial support to the foreign fighters. In 1994, Begg was arrested charged with conspiracy to defraud the Department of Social Security. The fraud charges against Begg were dropped for lack of evidence. Other items found included a hand-held night vision lens. Begg insisted that the goggles and flak jacket were from his charity work in Bosnia and Chechnya and denied owning any "extremist Islamic literature" and noted the items seized were identical to those that many aid workers operating in conflict zones carry. His father said Begg had been collecting military paraphernalia as a hobby since childhood. The statement identified Begg as "a member of al-Qaeda and affiliated organisations," who was "engaged in hostilities against the United States and its coalition partners" in Afghanistan and said he "provided support to al-Qaeda terrorists, by providing shelter for their families while the al-Qaeda terrorists committed terrorist acts". Begg has denied all these charges, saying that he has "never planned, aided or participated in any attacks against Westerners". In 1999, Begg's bookstore commissioned and published a book by Dhiren Barot about Barot's experiences in Kashmir, entitled The Army of Madinah in Kashmir. In February 2000, police and MI5 officers investigating Islamic terrorism raided the bookshop, took away books, files and computers, questioned staff and arrested Begg under British anti-terrorism laws. Begg's father said the British government retrieved encrypted files from his son's computer, and ordered Begg to open them, but Begg refused. A judge ruled that Begg could not be compelled to unlock the files. Begg considered it an economical place to bring up his family, and one where they would not be harassed for their race. Begg has also said "before the Taliban, warlords abounded, there was no security, the opium trade was booming, children were being used as sex slaves. At least the Taliban provided security and were building roads, and as opposed to the warlords, they seemed honest". Begg maintains that he is unaware of such a transaction, and that no one has ever shown him the document. In February 2002, Begg was seized at his rented home in Islamabad by, what Begg believes were, Pakistani agents working on behalf of the US. ==Detention by US, 2002–2005==

Detention in Afghanistan chained to ceiling of his cell, by former Reserve US Army Military Police Corps sergeant Begg was held at Bagram Theater Internment Facility from February 2002 to February 2003. He says that while there he was hog-tied, kicked, punched, left in a room with a bag put over his head (even though he suffered from asthma), sworn at, denied access to a lawyer, and threatened with electric shocks, having his fingers broken, sexual abuse, and, with extraordinary rendition to Egypt or Syria if he did not sign confessions. Detention in Guantanamo Bay prisoner was detained. Inset is the prisoners' reading room On 2 February 2003, Begg was transferred to United States military custody at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. A February 2003 editorial in Gulf News reported that Begg had written to his parents that he did not know what he was accused of and was beginning to feel hopeless and depressed. Begg was held in Guantanamo Bay for just under two years, the first almost 600 days of which were spent in solitary confinement. The US government considered Begg an enemy combatant, and claimed that he trained at al-Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan. He was not charged with any crime and was not allowed to consult legal counsel for the majority of the time he spent there. This is allowed by the Geneva Conventions, only as an "exceptional and temporary measure". In July 2004, Begg wrote a letter saying he was not tortured in Guantanamo, though the conditions were "torturous". Begg's American lawyer, Gitanjali Gutierrez of the Center for Constitutional Rights, received a handwritten letter from him, dated 12 July 2004, addressed to the US Forces Administration at Guantanamo Bay. It was copied to Begg's lawyers, and the US authorities agreed to declassify it. Its full text was passed to his British lawyer, Gareth Peirce. He insisted: "I am a law-abiding citizen of the UK, and attest vehemently to my innocence, before God and the law, of any crime — though none has even been alleged". Alleged contacts with extremists ==Release==

Following the United States Supreme Court decision in Rasul v. Bush (2004), in which the court ruled that detainees had habeas corpus rights and could challenge their detention, the US government quickly developed a system of Combatant Status Review Tribunals, Administrative Review Boards, and military commissions to provide the detainees with an "impartial tribunal" for reviewing their cases. Detainees could not call defence lawyers, could not review the evidence against them, and had allegations made that were dependent on hearsay evidence. The British government protested about their citizens being subjected to the planned Guantanamo tribunals, because due process rights would be severely curtailed. While they were still regarded as "enemy combatants" by the US government, it had brought no specific charges against them. The New York Times and CNN reported that Bush had released Begg as a favour to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was being harshly criticised in the UK for his support of the Iraq war. The Atlantic claimed that the Bush administration has tried to make a gag order a condition of Begg's release, but that this would not have been acceptable to the British public. On arrival they were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 by officers from the Metropolitan Police and taken to Paddington Green Police Station for questioning by anti-terrorist officers. By 9.00pm on 26 January, all four had been released without charge. ==Post-release: January 2005–present==

US claims of ties to terrorism Bush released Begg over the objections of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, overruling most of his senior national security advisers, who were concerned that Begg could be a dangerous terrorist. In 2006, the Pentagon still maintained that he was a terrorist. Alleged contacts with extremists after release Begg gave a number of presentations to the Islamic Society at University College London in 2007, at a time that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was its president. The Times reported that Begg took part in the 'War on Terror Week' UCL presentations at Abdulmutallab's invitation. The New York Times reported that Abdulmutallab had helped to organise the week as president of the society and that an attendee had claimed that Abdulmutallab was seated "very close [to Begg]". The Weekly Standard called Begg "A jihadist", "a masterful anti-American propagandist" and "a demonstrable fraud". Begg interviewed American imam, and alleged al-Qaeda senior figure, Anwar al-Awlaki after al-Awlaki was released from jail in Yemen in 2007. Passport refusal and confiscation In February 2005, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke refused to issue Begg a passport. He did so based on information obtained while Begg was in US custody. He said "there are strong grounds for believing that, on leaving the UK, [Begg] would take part in activities against the United Kingdom or allied targets". Clarke used Royal prerogative to refuse the passport which had only been used 13 times since 1947 in this way – the previous time being in 1976. Begg claimed that the real reason for the confiscation was his campaign to prove UK and US complicity in the use of torture and rendition of suspects, and that he had been stopped for questioning almost every time he had travelled, even when returning from an official speaking invitation at the European Parliament. In January 2022, Begg announced he was taking legal action for a judicial review of the British Home Secretary's rejection of his application for a passport, which had been confiscated in 2013. In February 2022 VICE World News published an interview of Mr Begg in which refers to his continuing harassment by authorities. Public positions Since his release, Begg has stated he is against attacks such as 9/11 but that he supported those fighting against British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2010, referring to Afghanistan, Begg said he completely supported the inalienable right of the people to fight foreign occupation. if resisting the occupation of Afghanistan was not only considered good but lionised [in the 1980s] by the British government and US . . . then nothing has changed other than interests." He has worked as outreach director for the charitable organisation and advocacy group CAGE, (formerly 'Cageprisoners') to represent those detainees still held at Guantanamo, as well as to help those who have been released to get services and integrate into society. He has travelled on speaking tours, and worked to persuade governments to accept former detainees for resettlement. In 2010, Cynthia Stroum, then-U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg, commented "Mr Begg is doing our work for us...", adding that Begg's "articulate, reasoned presentation makes for a convincing argument". In December 2005, Begg made a video appeal to the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, the Iraqi kidnappers of four Western peace workers, asking for their release. There was an inter-faith effort calling for the men's release. Abu Qatada, a detainee held in Britain also appealed for release of the men. In early March 2006, the body of the American hostage, Tom Fox, was found in Baghdad. A week-long military operation led by British forces secured the release of the remaining three hostages, one Briton and two Canadians, later that month. In 2010, when CAGE had recently expanded its work to include the highlighting of the use of drone strikes for extrajudicial killings, Begg said that little had changed despite Barack Obama's promises: "We say that Bush was the president of torture, but Obama is the president of extra-judicial killing . . . while one used to extra-judicially detain people, the other has gone a step further and extra-judicially kills them". Speaker and activist As director of outreach for the prisoner rights organisation, CAGE, Begg has appeared in the media and around the country, lecturing on issues pertaining to the British Muslim community, such as imprisonment without trial, torture, anti-terror legislation and measures and community relations. He has appeared as a commentator on radio and television interviews and documentaries, including the BBC's Panorama and Newsnight shows, PBS's The Prisoner, Al-Jazeera's Prisoner 345, Taking Liberties, and Torturing Democracy, and National Geographic's ''Guantanamo's Secrets''. He has authored pieces which have appeared in newspapers and magazines. He has toured as a speaker about his time in detention facilities, calling the British response to terrorism racist, and disproportionate to anti-terror measures and legislation during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In January 2009, Begg toured the UK with former Guantanamo guard Christopher Arendt, in the Two Sides, One Story tour. Begg has campaigned against US wartime policy with human rights organisations such as Reprieve, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, PeaceMaker and Conflicts Forum. In July 2015, Begg endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. Book, 2006 Begg co-authored a book released in March 2006 about his Guantanamo experiences, it was co-written with Victoria Brittain, a former associate foreign editor of The Guardian. It was published in Britain as ''Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey To Guantanamo and Back (), and in the US as Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (). In the US, the foreword was written by David Ignatius of The Washington Post''. The book received praise in Britain for Begg's "outstanding liberality of mind and evenhandedness toward his captors". "Much of the Moazzam Begg story is consistent with other accounts of detention conditions in both Afghanistan and Guantanamo", said John Sifton, a New York-based official from Human Rights Watch, who interviewed former Guantanamo prisoners in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The New York Times reported "some notable gaps in Mr. Begg's memoir", such as not mentioning his arrest in 1994 for alleged fraud. Jonathan Raban, reviewing the book for The New York Review of Books, wrote " The gaps in his story — and they're more frustrating than downright suspicious — cease at the moment when Begg enters captivity". Raban criticised some "notably talentless" dialogue writing, "Perhaps Begg really did strike up a warm relationship with soldier Jennifer … but only in bad fiction do people speak this way". Finally concluding "There can be no doubt about the reality of the predicament described by Moazzam Begg … the indiscriminate dragnet thrown out by the United States … brought in a catch that included many bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and whose single common denominator was that they were Muslims." Begg earned the "Published Writer Award" for the book, at the annual Muslim Writers Awards in March 2008. Lawsuit against the British government In April 2008, Begg and seven other former Guantanamo detainees filed lawsuits in Britain's High Court accusing the British Attorney General, Home and Foreign Secretaries, MI5 and MI6, of unlawful acts, negligence and complicity in their abduction, treatment and interrogation. At a 2009 court hearing, Government lawyers denied the charges, but stated that MI5 had interviewed some detainees and in some instances supplied questions that they wished prisoners to be asked. In November 2010, the British Government announced that it had reached a financial settlement with 16 detainees, including Begg. The British Government said there was no evidence that British officials participated directly in the abuse of prisoners, however, in 2010, a Public inquiry was formed to investigate the matter. In 2013, an interim report by the Gibson Inquiry into British involvement in torture and rendition of detainees concluded that the British government and UK intelligence services had been involved in rendition and had interviewed suspects whom they knew were being mistreated. Guantanamo video game, 2009 In 2009, Begg was an advisor, and was due to appear as himself, for the Scottish software company T-Enterprise in the development of a video game entitled Rendition: Guantanamo, for Microsoft's Xbox 360. The game would have put the player in the place of the detainees. The software company's director said, "We approached Moazzam because it's very hard for us to know how to design the layout of the prison and he helped", and that neither US nor British soldiers would get killed in the game, only mercenaries. Begg said that, when first approached, he hesitated, "I was worried that it might trivialise my experience", but that he would "help to bring those issues to people who would not usually think about it". Ultimately, T-Enterprise did not complete the game due to US press coverage, which it described as "inaccurate and ill informed speculation ... many conclusions were reached that have absolutely no foundation whatsoever". Begg filed a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission against The Sunday Times for publishing an accusation of links between Amnesty and the Taliban. Amnesty International posted a response to press coverage of the incident by Claudio Cordone, Amnesty Secretary General, pointing out that Amnesty's work with Begg had "focused exclusively on highlighting the human rights violations committed in Guantánamo Bay". Begg says he later discussed the allegations with Sahgal, "Because I advocate a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan, she portrayed me as the greatest supporter of the Taliban and therefore, by extension, a supporter of everything they have said in terms of rights of women and so forth. That's not very clever, nor is it very honest". West Midlands Police said: "This is an arrest, not a charge, and ... our naming does not imply any guilt". In July of the same year, Begg was charged by the same force with terrorist activities related to his alleged actions in the Syrian Civil War, including attending a terrorist training camp. While awaiting trial, he was held in Belmarsh, a British high-security prison. In October 2014, shortly before his trial was due to start, Begg was released after the prosecution announced that they would be offering no evidence due to documents having come into their possession showing that MI5 had been aware of, and had consented to, Begg's travels to Syria. West Midlands Police said "new evidence had come to light" and immediately following the verdict, its assistant chief constable said the police fully accepted that Moazzam Begg was an innocent man. Palestine Action protest arrest, 2025 On 9 August 2025, Begg attended a protest in Parliament Square, London, opposing the UK government’s decision to proscribe the activist group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000. The Metropolitan Police estimated between 500 and 600 people were present when the protest began, and at 1 p.m., many unveiled placards reading “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Police arrested 466 people at the scene for suspected offences under the Act, later rising to more than 500 – the largest number detained in a single day by the force in over a decade. Begg was among those arrested, according to contemporaneous media reports. ==Open letter to President Biden==

On 29 January 2021 the New York Review of Books published an open letter from Begg, and six other Guantanamo detainees, to newly inaugurated American President Biden, appealing to him to close the detention camp. ==Documentary appearances==

• Begg was among those interviewed in the 2007 documentary Taxi to the Dark Side about the killing of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram detention centre. The film, which was directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, won the 2007 Academy Award for "Best Documentary Feature". The documentary was also shown as part of the international Why Democracy? documentary series. • Begg is the subject of an extended interview in The Confession (2016), discussing his life prior to his incarceration in Guantánamo Bay, his incarceration, and subsequent life. It was given four stars by the Guardian, who described Begg's "principled, consistent testimony" having a "rare gravity and profound moral force". This documentary has also been shown in the BBC Storyville documentary series, under the title Moazzam Begg: Living the War on Terror. • Begg is interviewed in the 2009 documentary Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo, co-directed by Andy Worthington and Polly Nash. The film focuses on the cases of Begg and other UK detainees with comments by lawyers Clive Stafford Smith, Gareth Peirce and Tom Wilner. According to Gareth Peirce, possession of this film has been offered in British courts as evidence of radicalisation. Representation in play • Begg, and his father Azmat, both feature as characters in a play written by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, entitled Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, which opened in 2004 at the Tricycle Theatre before transferring to the New Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End. The play is based on the testimonies of detainees and others. A production was mounted at the Culture Project in New York. In 2006 the Tricycle presented performances of the play at the Houses of Parliament and on Washington's Capitol Hill. ==See also==