Biography – Moazzam Begg
Moazzam Begg is one of nine British citizens who were held at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay by the
government of the United States of America. Begg was labelled an ‘enemy combatant’ by the US government,
imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and whose precise nature has never been determined.
Moazzam was born 40 years ago in Birmingham to secular Muslim parents. His mother died when he was six,
and his father sent him to the Jewish King David School in Birmingham, because he thought it inculcated
good values. In his 20s Begg became more interested in politics – Islamic politics. He never fitted one dogma
neatly – conservative when it came to family values, leftist when it came to issues of equality. In the early 90s,
between his job and studying law, he spent considerable time working in Bosnia as part of the relief effort.
Moved by the plight of the Afghani people, in 2001 Begg travelled to Kabul with his family to start a school
for basic education and provide water pumps. When the allied attack on Afghanistan began in October 2001,
Begg and his family moved to Islamabad in Pakistan for safety. It was there that he was seized in January
2002 by Pakistani police and CIA officers, bundled into a back of a car and taken back to Kabul, where he was
held in a windowless cell at Bagram airbase for nearly a year – where he witnessed the death of two prisoners
by US soldiers. After this he was sent to Guantanamo Bay where he remained for two years – mostly in
solitary confinement. During his time in custody he memorised large parts of the Quran.He was released on
January 25, 2005 without charge though he received no explanation or apology.
As director for the prisoner human rights organisation, Cageprisoners, Moazzam appears extensively both in
the media in the UK and internationally, lecturing on issues surrounding imprisonment without trial, torture,
anti-terror legislation and community relations. Patrons of this organisation include journalists Yvonne Ridley,
Lauren Booth (sister-in-law of former Prime Minister Tony Blair), Victoria Brittain (former chief foreign
editor, The Guardian and Sami al-Hajj (head of human rights section, Al-Jazeera).
Moazzam has delivered hundreds of speeches at schools, colleges and regularly speaks at the UK’s top
universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College, LSE, UCL, Warwick, York and Durham. He has
addressed multi-faith audiences across the UK, including the historic Wells and Blackburn Cathedrals. He has
also been a keynote speaker at the Jewish Forum for Human Rights. He has also been a regular visitor to
Northern Ireland where he has met with numerous former prisoners to discuss the peace process as well as
similarities between the Muslim and Irish experience in the UK. Moazzam has also delivered Friday sermons
at many mosques, including one at the Al-Quds Masjid in Cape Town, South Africa where over 6,000
worshippers attended and another in Jamia Masjid, Nairobi to over 12,000 people.
He delivered presentations in front of several world leaders and politicians including Mahathir Mohammed
(former Prime Minister, Malaysia), Martin McGuiness (Deputy First Secretary, Northern Ireland), Mahmood
Ahmedinajad (President, Iran) and Kenneth Clark (Lord Chancellor, UK).
Moazzam has authored numerous opinion pieces that have appeared in major broadsheets around the world –
and regularly writes for the Guardian Comment is Free. He has authored an award-winning book detailing life
as a Muslim living in the UK and his further experiences in Guantánamo. Enemy Combatant ‫ عدو محارب‬is the
first book to be published by a former Guantánamo Bay prisoner – which has been translated into several
languages and was featured in numerous British book festivals.
He is regularly invited on national and international media as a commentator and has appeared on numerous
radio and television interviews and, documentaries including the BBC's Hardtalk, Newsnight and Panorama
shows and PBS's The Prisoner. He is also featured in a number of award-winning human rights documentary
films including, Al-Jazeera's Prisoner 345, Songs of War, Taking Liberties, You Don’t Like the Truth, Death
in Guantanamo, Torturing Democracy, National Geographic's Guantanamo's Secrets and Taxi to the Dark Side
which received an academy award (Oscar) in 2008. Moazzam is also a published poet and some of his poetry
appears in the highly acclaimed anthology, Poems from Guantanamo which was launched with Amnesty
International alongside poet laureate Andrew Motion. Moazzam also hosts a programme on Islam Channel
entitled Absent Justice.
In January 2009, Moazzam made a momentous tour around the UK with former Guantanamo guard,
Christopher Arendt, in the Two Sides, One Story tour. Later that year he and Cageprisoners took part in the
historic Convention on Modern Liberty. He also spoke in Dubai with former Guantanamo soldier Terry
Holdbrooks and the world-renown Professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo on the effects of torture on the human
psyche at Boldtalks 2011. Moazzam’s religious, political and professional views were recorded by the
Columbia University Oral History project in the same year.
Moazzam was also closely involved in discussions with the foreign ministries of several European countries in
order to seek the resettlement of prisoners from Guantanamo and was praised by the US ambassador to
Luxembourg - where he personally met with the Deputy Prime Minster - for his efforts and articulation, as
revealed in a 2010 WikiLeaks cable. Moazzam was later interviewed by Julian Assange as a result.
In 2010 controversy broke out regarding Moazzam’s views on dialogue with the Taliban and al-Qaida (a
position now openly endorsed by many political and military leaders). This was borne out in public attacks
made against him by a former member of Amnesty International which were championed by the likes of
Salman Rushdie. However, Amnesty defended its position in working with Moazzam and Cageprisoners.
Later that year, along with other former Guantanamo prisoners, Moazzam won a substantial out-of-court
settlement – after meeting with very senior government minsters – against the British government for
complicity in torture after which Prime Minster David Cameron announced a judge-led inquiry into the actions
of British intelligence. The police are also leading an unprecedented criminal investigation into the actions of
the intelligence services based on testimony of Moazzam and others.
In 2012 testimony presented by Moazzam alongside survivors of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison became pivotal in
securing a guilty verdict at the International War Crimes Tribunal in Kuala Lumpur against several former
members of the Bush administration. During his travels Moazzam has also revisited the site of his abduction
by US agents in Pakistan and has investigated British complicity in torture there as well as in Kenya, Tunisia,
Libya, Egypt and most recently Syria.In 2013 Moazzam took part in an interview with prominent Saudi cleric
Sheikh Mohammed al-Arifi about conditions Guantanamo.
Moazzam is also one of the founders of the Guantanamo Justice Centre – alongside Sami al-Hajj, Binyam
Mohamed and Omar Deghayes, established in July 2009 for the welfare of prisoners released and return from
Guantanamo Bay and a patron of prisoners’ families charity HHUGS . Moazzam has worked very closely with
leading human rights organisations and has worked closely with Reprieve, Amnesty International, Islamic
Human Rights Commission, the Law Society, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional
Rights, Rewind, Peacemaker and Conflicts Forum.
Moazzam is fluent in English, Arabic and Urdu languages.