Moazzam Begg

Moazzam Begg

Yesterday, I went to listen to A Conversation With Moazzam Begg, a former detainee of Guantanamo Bay turned author and campaigner for human rights.

It's taken me until now to know how to write this up.

I'm not sure why I wanted to go so much. I think I have a sense that Guantanamo Bay is perhaps one of those defining elements of my lifetime. The fact it's allowed to happen, it breaks all ideas of fairness, human rights, dignity and even legal procedure, and yet our government supports it. It sums up an age.

Much of my reason for going was just curiosity. I wanted to see someone who had been on the wrong side of the fence. See what they looked like, see what they sounded like, hear what they had to say. And, yes, ashamedly I admit, I did wonder what on earth they had done to end up there - because government conspiracy ends with The X-Files. There are no men in black suits who make British citizens 'disappear' in the night and take them away to secret US compounds for interrogation and torture, right? You get arrested for a reason, right? Joe Bloggs must really have done something to distinguish himself for the CIA to come knocking, right?

I think that's the most important lesson I took away. Life is sometimes stranger than fiction. This funny, eloquent, intelligent, and thoroughly down-to-earth British man could have no idea that the actions he took as a charity aid worker would, a few years later and in the ugly political light that we now bask, be justification in the eyes of America for kidnap and torture. And they really did torture him. The CIA ordered him to be hog-tied (hands behind back) and beaten. Sounds of a woman screaming were played next door and pictures of his wife were waved in front of him with men asking 'Where do you think your wife and children are now? Do you think they're safe?'

He witnessed the murder of two other detainees. Of David Hicks, he said simply: ‘He just wanted to go home,’ describing an incident where he himself had signed a confession during his second day at Guantanamo, whilst held at gunpoint under heavy sedation. The options are ‘sign and take it to court’ or ‘don’t, and rot here indefinitely’.

This is no 'justice' system we've ever heard of. He was incarcerated for three years. Two in Guantanamo, and the first in another detention camp. I did not realise that there were more camps. Many, many more camps, of which Guantanamo is the better example because it is in the public spotlight.

I can't explain or recount everything that was said, or the profound affect it had on all listening. I can't express the humanity of the person talking who, throughout it all, has managed to retain a humorous sense of the absurdity of it all. What I can say is that, if you ever get a chance to go hear this man speak, do! He is the spokesman for a charity called CagePrisoners, where you should be able to get dates of talks.

It's easy to become cynical and immune to the human aspect of this. The press, however much we treat them with suspicion and scepticism, still colour what we think without us often realising it. Going and hearing a person speak about their experiences, watching and listening to them face-to-face, washes away some of that printer ink from our brains. It reminds us of what is important; what is human.