Moazzam Begg

Back in February, a distressing Islamophobic fuse was lit when Gita Sahgal, the head of the gender unit at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, criticized Amnesty for its association with former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners, the organization of which he is the director, in the pages of the Sunday Times, via a [...]

To complement my recent article, “UN Human Rights Council Discusses Secret Detention Report,” in which I explained how, two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Council had — after some delays — finally discussed the findings of the “Joint Study on Global Practices in Relation to Secret Detention in the Context of Counter-Terrorism,” a detailed, [...]

On reflection, two days before the General Election was a weird time to be travelling anywhere to show “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” the new documentary film, co-directed by Polly Nash and myself, which former prisoner Omar Deghayes and I have been touring since February. This week it was as though the impetus to [...]

All week, the journalist Paul Cahalan has been writing articles about Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo Bay, for the Wandsworth Guardian (in Shaker’s home borough). Shaker, who has a British wife and four British children, continues to be held at Guantánamo, despite being cleared for release in 2007. Shaker’s story features in [...]

On Friday, it emerged in a UK court that the Metropolitan Police is investigating allegations that MI5 was complicit in the torture, in US custody in Afghanistan, of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident still held at Guantánamo. In the High Court, Richard Hermer QC, counsel for Aamer, told Mr. Justice Sullivan that Met officers [...]

The following article, originally published on Cageprisoners, is Moazzam Begg’s first detailed response to the campaign directed at his relationship (and that of Cageprisoners) with Amnesty International, which I reported in an article entitled, “Defending Moazzam Begg and Amnesty International.” I am pleased to be cross-posting it here, and hope that readers pay attention to [...]

It was a full house yesterday evening at Amnesty International’s Human Rights Action Centre in London, for a screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” directed by Polly Nash and myself. I’m glad to report that the film was very well received, and was followed by an excellent Q&A session with myself and former [...]

As part of the Times’ and Sunday Times’ ongoing witch-hunt of former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners (the organization of which he is the director), Margarette Driscoll wrote an uncritical article on Sunday about Gita Sahgal, the head of Amnesty’s Gender Unit, who started the ball rolling by badmouthing her employer to the Sunday [...]

This evening, Amnesty International is screening “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” the new documentary, directed by Polly Nash and myself, which tells the story of the Bush administration’s despicable post-9/11 flight from the law through interviews with former prisoners Omar Deghayes and Moazzam Begg, lawyers Clive Stafford Smith and Tom Wilner, and myself.  The [...]

In response to the hysteria regarding Amnesty International’s association with former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners (which I reported in detail here), another former prisoner, Bisher al-Rawi, has written the following letter to the Times, which I found to be eloquent, understated and unerringly accurate about the role of Amnesty in providing hope to [...]