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Returning to Life

By Deepa Fernandes and Pratap Chatterjee, AlterNet. Posted July 18, 2005.


Moazzam Begg, a British citizen, was held at various prisons, including Guantanamo Bay, for over three years before being released without charges. Now free, he shares the story of how he survived.

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Editor's Note: This is an abridged version of an extensive interview with Moazzam Begg, who was released from Guantanamo Bay earlier this year. Full audio and text archive are available at Wakeup Call Radio.

DEEPA FERNANDES:You came out of prison six months ago back to Britain. You hadn't seen your family. You hadn't had much communication. I wonder if you can talk about how hard it has been to adjust back to life after being away for so long?

MOAZZAM BEGG: Well, it hasn't been that hard. I kept myself in a frame of mind, that if they had thrown me in a shopping mall after years of solitary confinement, I would be able to deal with it quite coherently. I don't see myself as a victim. I see myself as a survivor returning back to the life I have always known.

PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Like you, I was born in Birmingham. What was it like to grow up Muslim in England over the last 35 years before you went to Afghanistan. What was your life like and what are your perspectives?

MOAZZAM BEGG: I was born and raised in Birmingham. I originally went to a Jewish school and then to a secondary school, which including having friends from all different backgrounds. Sikh, Muslim, Hindus, Christians, white, blacks. All different categories and denominations of people. As I got older, I discovered a little bit more about my Islamic identity.

I was as a Muslim as any mainstream Muslim person. As I got older, I saw things that changed me and my perspective, particularly in relation to the Muslim world vis-à-vis the rest of the world. That happened first with the Gulf War but even more so by the conflict in former Yugoslavia with the attack by the Serbs on Bosnian Srebrenica. That was a crucial catalyst and I think a turning point in my life.

DEEPA FERNANDES: I wonder if you can talk us through what happened to you from when you were picked up from your house in Pakistan to your time in prison at Guantanmo Bay.

MOAZZAM BEGG: Yes. It was three years of my life, so it is very difficult to condense into a few minutes. But, I can try to highlight the most profound parts of my incarceration including being held by the Americans in Kandahar, in Bagram, and ultimately in Guantanamo for 2 years. During my time there, I witnessed things that I would have never perceived the United States would be capable of. With my own eyes, I witnessed the killing of at least two detainees by military police with their own hands.

DEEPA FERNANDES: That is a grave charge. What happened?

MOAZZAM BEGG: In the first instance, they claimed it was someone who was trying to escape from a cell that was a couple of cells away from me. They caught him, and after they'd beaten him, they dropped his body if front of my cell, near where the medical room was.

Shortly after that, he was pronounced dead. He was carried out on a stretcher, with his body covered. They stated at that time that he wasn't dead. I overhead the guards saying that he had been killed, and they were running around in bit of a frenzy worried about what had taken place.

A year or so later, someone confirmed to me that he was killed. The second person was beaten to death in the same cell as me. He was held with his hands tied above his head with a hood placed about it and suspended for several days. He had been on sleep deprivation, which was one of the forms of punishment there for those who seem to be non-cooperative.

Eventually, the guards came in to take him for interrogation. His body went limp. Rather then try to assist him, they punched and kicked him. They dragged him off afterwards, and we never saw him or heard from him again. Later, I was told he was killed.

I was moved to Guantanamo Bay shortly afterwards. After I'd been at Guantanamo about a year and a half, some officers of the CID, Criminal Investigation Department came and asked me if I was willing to point out the detainees that were killed.

They showed me some photographs and asked me afterwards if I was willing to point out the perpetrators, which I did.

Then, they asked me if I would be willing to testify in a trial as a witness, to prosecute these people, which I found very ironic, as they were trying to put me through some sort of military commission at that point.

To be fair to the Americans, there were some individuals soldiers, I came across who were some of the most humane individuals I have come across in my life, and I salute them, and consider them my friends.

DEEPA FERNANDES: You were first at Bagram Air Base and then taken to Guantanamo. Did you know where you were and where you were being taken?


Digg!

Transcript by Alpa Patel. Deepa Fernandes is the host of WBAI's Wakeup Call. Pratap Chatterjee is managing editor of CorpWatch.org and the author of "Iraq Inc." (Seven Stories Press, September 2004).

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Why Do I Have to Go to Alternet For This
Posted by: expat in tokyo on Jul 18, 2005 5:07 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First and Foremost Thank You.. and I give my deepest regrets that you were put through what you were put through in my name(as an american citizen).
The question that kept burning in my mind as I read this article is why have I not seen this in the MSM(main stream media)?
What you have gone through is described as a hell as close to as can be experienced on this Earth, and yet the average american is never going to hear this story or any like it. They will hear about Koran desicration or something like it, but I have never seen a human face and story but in the context of Gitmo et al.
What your story brings is a real account, told by a very literate individual who suffered so much. That is something I think all americans, upon hearing, would be agast at.
Its is this type of treatment that as you said "if they werent terrorists before, they will be after" will bring its own results. Besides I dont think its the terrorists who are missing thier quota goals!!

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Your shaming brings shame on us all
Posted by: emerlyearts on Jul 18, 2005 8:29 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I also want to offer my appology to you for what my country has done. How can we think the world will believe or respect anything we SAY when what we DO is so shameful? Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Our fruit is becomming more rotten by the day and I (and many of my countrymen) are sickened by it.
Thank you for speaking out.

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shawn
Posted by: xyz2002 on Jul 18, 2005 10:10 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Everyone should read this interview.

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Moazzam Begg
Posted by: Kajamian on Jul 18, 2005 11:17 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thank you for telling your experience. Hopefully, it will be some small justification for losing three years of your life. I admire the courage of your father and your family.
This administration has made a great show of defining "torture" and then trying to assure the American people that there is no torture happening in US detention centers. To me, torture would be solitary confinment without charges, without due process, without communication and without any idea of how long it would continue. That would have me considering suicide in fairly short order without resorting to any physical torture.
Over 100 prisoners have died in less than three years. Children as young as 10-14 were locked up. People have been "rendered" to countries known to use torture; but we're accepting their "verbal assurances" that it won't happen. Right! US citizens are being held in federal facilities in much the same circumstances as you experienced in Guantanamo. They are taken at gunpoint but told they are possible material witnesses. Most have never been asked to testify about anything.

This is not my America and I am ashamed of what it has become. The most compelling argument against this entire administration is a letter from a gentleman who spent several years working in Europe. He stated that often, during the cold war, there was strong anti-American sentiment. And he was amazed that the most vocal supporters of America were German POW's from WWII. He asked them why. They said it was because even though they were "enemy combatants," they were treated like human beings by the American military. Amazing! Makes me wonder how we got along without a definition of "torture" for all these years.

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Continue to stand up with such courage and faith
Posted by: Lindie on Jul 18, 2005 11:28 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thank you for speaking out. I am ashamed of my own country's leaders for the part they played in creating the situations and policies that made your illegal detention and inhumane treatment possible. You seem to have transcended the ordeal, in spite of everything that you experienced. That in itself is a victory over the monsters. You have survived by the Will of God, returned to your loved ones, and live to tell the truth.

It is good that you are in Great Britain, and not America, as a former detainee. Many of our own Middle-eastern and Asian citizens who have done nothing except live here, report fearing their neighbors, being accosted on the street, and feeling no more free than you were on Guantanamo.

Please continue to speak out, and DO take legal action against your captors - do it so that there is a public, legally protected, open record of what you experienced, and so that those who formulated the policies, told the lies, and perpetrated the abuses can't continue to cover it up.

God/Allah bless you and your family. Peace.

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Bush agenda is built on communism
Posted by: outtheresisters on Jul 18, 2005 3:42 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is my understanding that the whole War against terrorism agenda is based on communist theory. I say communist, because what is communism other then protecting government rights and denying citizens rights?

Let's face it folks, if it were not for the denial of our rights then the Bush administration would NOT have an agenda. The denial of rights makes the Bush agenda successful.

The Bush administration has classified " persons who are not government officials as enemy; enemy has no rights" In other words it is a crime for YOU citizen to have rights, and for government officials to commit crime, it is their right (same tactic the USSR used against its own citizens)

Like I said the Bush administrations ideals are about bringing back COMMUNISM. The one party rule!

I say it is time to knock down that wall

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There's two sides
Posted by: fjames on Jul 18, 2005 6:01 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
a moving piece to say the least. I read a disticntly different story today about a detainee. An enemy combatant was brought to guantanamo, his leg was amputated. US soldiers helped dr's aquire a prostetis leg and dr's gave him occupational therapy. He was interrogated and eventually released to Afganastan. He is currently being sought in a bombing there that KILLED INNOCENT PEOPLE!
Some are innocent maybe the gentleman in the article, but a good portion are crazed murders.

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» Two Sides to Our Bombs as Well!! Posted by: expat in tokyo
» RE: There's two sides Posted by: ian_m64
» RE: There's two sides Posted by: Randen Leigh Pederson
» no sides! Posted by: classwarnow
This is an unfortunate tale
Posted by: sambo4 on Jul 19, 2005 4:52 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm sorry that you went through that experience being innocent. I cannot though apologize for America's right to defend itself. You said that many of the prisoners said that they weren't terrorists before but they certainly will be when they leave. That made me think of all the millions of people in American jails swearing to anyone and anything that they didn't do anything.

Our country was attacked. Radical fanatics flew airplanes full of innocent blood into buildings full of innocent blood. Who weeps for them? Every day it seems, fanatics strap explosives to themselves and blow up more innocent blood. What are we to do? The Christian faith says turn the other cheek. I don't have that kind of faith.

So I apologize to you that you were caught up as an innocent but I recognize and demand that our country take the steps necessary to defend itself.

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» RE: This is an unfortunate tale Posted by: Randen Leigh Pederson
» RE: This is an unfortunate tale Posted by: classwarnow
I am truly sorry and ashamed Mr. Begg
Posted by: camillabanks on Jul 19, 2005 5:10 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That these things have been done in our name. Most Americans are appalled and deeply disturbed at the treatment of "prisoners" by our government. There is no excuse and we are trying to rectify the situation.
My prayers for you, your family and all held illegally by this government. I am so sorry for your suffering.
Please forgive us.

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Witch hunt
Posted by: daro on Jul 19, 2005 10:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Your horrific tale puts me in mind of the custom for hunting down witches in mediaeval England. The supposed witch was dunked in the local village pond, those that drowned were innocent the ones that survived were deemed witches and dealt with accordingly. How sad that modern America still treats its suspects in the same cavalier fashion.
And then, how sad to see that even AlterNet carries a headline "London bomber mastermind arrested" when, on current evidence he is no such thing.

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Land Of The Free Huh?
Posted by: doneman2000 on Jul 19, 2005 1:57 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
After reading this wonderful piece I wondered how long it would take for the" they're all terrorists America is always right" crowd. These would be the same ones who think Bush and his cabal can do no wrong. These would also be the same ones who attribute patriotism to some sort of undying love of an elected indiviual who, in theory, works for us . The same ones who spout the word traitor at a moments notice if they supect some critisism of our illustrious president, the man who put us in Iraq. The man who has LIED to us at every turn. The man who is nothing more than a Karl Rove fraud and a puppet of something which is beginning to look very sinister at worst and anti-American at best. It is a very sad time for many of us in America the free.

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» RE: Land Of The Free Huh? Posted by: classwarnow
this is to posters, mostly, not the article
Posted by: classwarnow on Aug 4, 2005 6:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
i would like everyone to stop using the phrase "this administration." things like this have happened under EVERY adminstration. people have been killed, tortured, locked up, violated, etc. under every president, every congress, every system of leaders we've ever had. we cannot expect it to end when bush loses power. we cannot expect it to slow down when the next president is elected. it will continue to happen as long as we sit idly by and let it happen. it will continue as long as we hold our american life at standards far above what the world's resources can handle. it will happen as long as we let our lives be controlled by rich, white men, who oversee every aspect of our lives; our jobs, our families, our careers, our products, our resources.
we can either fight back and take control of our lives and our world to build unlimited freedom for all or we can sit by and share internet complaints and watch as our freedom and the world's freedom is stripped away.

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It's a lie...
Posted by: cloudyheaven_60 on Aug 23, 2005 4:38 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I read the interview several times. You're not fooling me folks. This interview is made-up, a total lie. Sentence by sentence, word by word, it's just a compilation of the words and thoughts that the ANTI-war left wants to hear. It's a lie folks...

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