February 28, 2014
by Moazzam Begg
islam21c.com
Source: muslimvillage. com.
Moazzam Begg reveals why the British government has been continually
harassing him since his return from Guantanamo, and took his passport
for the second time in eight years.
In the summer of 2012 I wrote about the first of my two visits to
Syria to investigate leads into cases of British and American complicity
in the rendition of terrorism suspects to the regime of Bashar
al-Assad.
This followed on from something I learned first-hand from CIA and US
military intelligence agents who threatened to send me to Egypt or Syria
if I failed to co-operate with them during my time in the Bagram
prison. I made British MI5/MI6 agents, who were present at every leg of
my unlawful imprisonment, fully aware of these threats. Their response
was that I had to co-operate with their US counterparts.
On my eventual return to the UK from Guantanamo, along with three
other British citizens I received a letter from the Home Office
informing me that my ability to apply for a passport had been restricted
by the Home Secretary under the powers of the ‘Royal Prerogative’.
Having returned from three years of separation from my loved ones,
spent mostly in solitary confinement and after suffering the effects of
regular human rights violations, I didn’t challenge the decision
immediately. Instead, I tried to rebuild my lost connection to a
traumatised family, including a son I’d never seen.
UK torture complicity
As part of my work for CagePrisoners, however, I soon began
campaigning for prisoners detained at Guantanamo and others held in
secret detention sites or who had disappeared after being rendered to
countries like Libya, Egypt, and Syria. We conducted numerous
investigations into recurrent reports of extreme torture carried out by
the Syrian regime and discovered the complicity of the governments of
the US, Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Britain.
I was also constantly being invited to speak all over the world about
issues pertaining to Guantanamo, torture, the rule of law and the war
terror. Thus, in 2009 I mounted a successful challenge to get my
passport back.
My subsequent extensive travel abroad was greeted simultaneously by
meetings with people in power—including unexpected praise from US
ambassadors in Luxembourg—to armed police escorting me off planes in
order to deny me entry to Canada (where I’d gone to meet with Canadian
rendition victims sent to Syria).
Returning to the UK airports was often an ordeal in its own right as I
would be stopped almost every time and questioned under Schedule 7 of
the Terrorism Act 2000. This happened even on visits to Brussels where I
was invited to speak at the European Parliament by British MEPs as well
as trips to Malaysia where I had been giving evidence in war crimes
tribunals set up by the former prime minister there. Often British
police would ask me if I had gone to these places to further my claims
about British complicity in torture.
During this period three very important things happened which I
believe the British intelligence services have been unable to recover
from:
1. A major civil action was taken by 16 former Guantanamo prisoners
against the British government and intelligence services for complicity
in torture and false imprisonment.
2. Prime Minister David Cameron ordered a judge-led inquiry to be launched into allegations that the UK was complicit in torture
3. The Metropolitan police began a criminal investigation against
British intelligence services into recurrent allegations of complicity
in kidnap, torture and false imprisonment
In 2010 we won an out-of-court settlement against the government
after it was compelled to hand over documents that showed how British
government ministers had decided we should be consigned to Guantanamo,
despite evidence of mistreatment.
At the end of the discussions with the government the then Justice
Minister, Kenneth Clarke QC, sat with us and listened. Several of the
world’s supposedly most dangerous terrorists sat in a room with a senior
Tory minister discussing the previous government’s wrongs. I handed
Clarke a copy of my book hoping there might be some proper understanding
after this but, all the while the government was preparing the Justice
and Security Bill[11]—which was passed as law earlier this year—that
would ensure damaging and embarrassing civil actions such as ours would
henceforth be heard in secret under colour of ‘national security
concerns.’
The inquiry into torture by Sir Peter Gibson was shelved last week in
favour of the Intelligence and Security Committee but in his interim
report Gibson concluded that MI5 had at best ‘turned a blind eye’[12] to
our abuse.
The criminal investigation is still on-going but I have sat for hours
with the Metropolitan Police giving testimony to them about what
happened in Bagram and Guantanamo and, they have gone to meet with
rendition victims in Libya[13] and continue to investigate the claims of
Shaker Aamer[14] who has been in Guantanamo without charge for twelve
years.
Last year several former Guantanamo prisoners, including me, met with
Asa Hutchinson, who had served as US Undersecretary for Homeland
Security while we were captives. In a report by the Constitution
Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment, which included him and two
former senior US generals, the practice of torture by the US
administration was described as “indisputable”. The report[15] also
stated bluntly that our treatment and indefinite detention was
“abhorrent and intolerable”. There was also no escaping the fact that
the British government had colluded in sending and keeping us there.
Visiting Syria
Following the uprisings of the ‘Arab spring’ I was able to make
several visits to the Arab world and follow up cases of rendition,
including the shocking case of a man whose tortured false testimony[16]
was used as a justification by both the US and UK to invade Iraq.
In July last year, I visited Syria where I met numerous former
prisoners who had been held by the Assad regime as well as a few victims
of US and UK rendition. One of the men, a Libyan who had resided in
Syria, had been rendered to Libya after a phone call by a British Libyan
dissident had been intercepted by MI5 and its contents disclosed to
Assad’s
Mukhābarāt (intelligence agency). Documents[17] found in the headquarters of Gaddafi’s
Mukhābarāt after the fall of Tripoli clearly prove British involvement.
A few months later, in October 2012, I was called by an MI5 officer
who said they wanted to talk to me about my views on the situation in
Syria after having read my article[18]. I told them that they must be
aware that I was investigating several leads regarding British and
American complicity in rendition and torture in Syria. They called back
after consulting with their lawyers and said they understood that and
would still like to meet. I agreed to speak to them and meet at a hotel
in East London. Both MI5 and I had our lawyers present.
MI5 was concerned about the possibility of Britons in Syria being
radicalised and returning to pose a potential threat to national
security. I told them that Britain had nothing to worry about,
especially since British foreign policy, at the time, seemed in favour
of the rebels. At the end of the meeting I was assured by MI5 that my
proposed return to Syria to continue my work would not be hindered, and
it wasn’t.
Subsequently, I travelled to Syria without incident. I spent much
time accumulating testimony and information for a report on the
situation of the current prisoners as well as the accounts of those who
had been detained and tortured in the past. I witnessed the squalid
refugee camps, I visited the wounded, young and old, some of whom I
buried, I saw the carnage of Assad’s killing machine and I saw the
beautiful young faces of children aged beyond their years. I witnessed
the harsh winter and saw farmers chop down their olive trees to warm
themselves and I heard the horror stories of torture under the rule of
both Bashar and Hafiz al-Assad. However, I also saw aid coming in from
all over the Muslim world which included British ambulances, British
fire engines, British garbage disposal trucks; British aid centres and
hospitals with British doctors (one of whom was killed[19] saving lives a
few months ago) and volunteers from Britain’s Muslim community. And
yes, there were some British fighters too. I do not believe any of them
posed any kind of threat to the UK.
I returned home without hindrance, except for the customary Schedule 7
stop. I was briefly questioned about my visit by border police and
returned home shortly after. I came back ‘radicalised’ enough to speak
at numerous events for various charities working out in Syria. I also
conducted interviews[20] with people on the ground that are close to the
fighters to answer questions about any tangible threat to the UK to
help allay the fears of the British public and intelligence services.
Schedule 7 stops
Since then I have been ‘randomly’ stopped[21] more times than I can recall under Schedule 7 while travelling.
The last time this happened, last month, I was en route to a
conference[22] in Turkey about the mass-imprisonments and torture
occurring in Egypt following the military coup. British police suggested
that I might be going to Syria, despite showing them details of
itinerary and return flights for the following weekend.
I was made to miss my flight but the police were prepared to rebook
me for the next available one meaning that they were neither preventing
me from going to Turkey, or even potentially to Syria. I refused their
offer as I would have had missed the conference by then and opted to
returned home. However, they took possession of my iPad and phone and
kept them for a week. Both items contained sensitive information and
documents pertaining to CagePrisoners’ investigations on both complicity
in torture and responses to the British government’s measures in
tackling extremism.
In anticipation of future harassment at airports I began legal
proceedings to challenge the constant harassment at airports under
Schedule 7 and informed the Home Office, the border police and British
airports about my intended travel via my lawyers. We received a response
from their lawyers, which acknowledged the letter but did little else.
Change of language
The language and attitude of the British government has steadily
changed towards the Syrian opposition especially since much of it has
openly chosen an Islamic path, something the west has been unwilling to
engage with and unprepared to accept. Britain went to war based on the
falsehood that Iraq may have possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Clear evidence of the use of chemical weapons, in addition to over
120,000 dead through the use of conventional ones in Syria has not
elicited any such response, and most people are grateful for it. No one
wants to see British involvement in Syria, especially the Syrians who
know well what happened next door in Iraq.
As a result, however, the Assad regime is now regarded as the better
of the two choices. That is why last month the decision to stop[23] even
non-lethal aid for western-backed factions in Syria was taken by
Britain. But, despite there being no evidence of a tangible threat from
British fighters returning from Syria (the contrary[24] in fact) and
certainly not the type that might have been posed from the same in Iraq
or Afghanistan because of the presence of British troops, the government
now wants to remove not just the passport but the nationality[25] of
Britons suspected of being involved in fighting in Syria. The
government’s myopic insistence on this point cannot fathom that this is
simply about Syria, not Britian. The counterterrorism industry, it
seems, has too many vested interests for the language to be tempered
with reason.
Instead of easing the arduous journeys for the numerous convoys
leaving with aid from Britain for Syria every month, border authorities
detain the aid workers for hours on end—both on exit from and re-entry
to the UK. On several occasions volunteers have been turned back,
vehicles confiscated and money and goods collected by the community for
the beleaguered Syrian people seized.
Britain has refused[26] to take any Syrian refugees despite the
unprecedented crisis facing millions fleeing the war. It also did next
to nothing for the British Muslim Dr. Abbas Khan[27] and has been
heavily criticised for shirking its duty regarding one of its own
citizens while he was horrifically tortured and murdered.
Simply speaking, the British government has lost all touch with the
reality on the ground and the enormous sentiments in the Muslim
community, and beyond, regarding the Syrian conflict.
Losing my passport – again
After a trip to South Africa[28] last month—which had coincided with
the funeral of Nelson Mandela—where I spoke extensively about the
complicity of the British government in rendition and torture, I was met
upon arrival at Heathrow by officials who served me with a notice to
seize my passport under the ‘Royal Prerogative’ stating that it was
assessed my previous visits to Syria had constituted involvement in
terrorism. No explanation other than that was given.
I am certain that the only reason I am being continually
harassed—something that began long before any visit to Syria—is because
CagePrisoners and I are at the forefront of investigations and
assertions based on hard evidence that British governments, past and
present, have been wilfully complicit in torture.
How logical is it to stop me from travelling anywhere in the world
simply because they want to prevent me from going to Syria? Numerous
British citizens have been prevented from entering Turkey (the key entry
point to Syria) at the behest of the British authorities. They could
have done the same with me.
It is these government-shaking issues that are the real reason why I
have been continually harassed and targeted by the authorities in this
country. I am not and never have been in anyway a threat to them, unless
words seeking accountability are a threat.
At a time when Islam and the Muslim community is facing an
unprecedented attack via politicians, the media and ultimately some
sections of the public susceptible to this onslaught, it has been the
aim of CagePrisoners and myself in trying to empower the community that
is being purposefully undermined.
The struggle for reason and justice is clearly a longer one than I
once imagined but since our aim is a good and just one, I do not believe
our detractors will succeed.
Link: :
http://muslimvillage.com/2014/02/28/50644/moazzam-begg-real-reason-passport-confiscated/.
