- The letter contained only hints of what Moazzam Begg's
interrogators may have done to him. He wrote of hunger and being kept awake
by bright lights. 'I still don't know what will happen with me,' he lamented
to his wife back home in Birmingham.
-
- Begg, 35, was writing from Bagram military base just
outside Kabul. He is the only British prisoner inside a cluster of metal
shipping containers at the heart of the United States army part of the
base, which serves as a 'jail' for al-Qaeda suspects.
-
- Now the camp is at the centre of a furious row over US
behaviour in the war on terror. Evidence is growing that prisoners inside
the containers are being tortured by American soldiers and CIA agents.
Begg may have written of more damaging details of his own treatment, but
many of his previous letters were never delivered.
-
- It appears the US soldiers at Bagram have much to hide.
Human rights groups are calling for an inquiry into the methods used by
American interrogators at Bagram and other bases in Afghanistan.
-
- US officials have admitted that suspects captured in
the region are 'softened up' on their way to detention by brutal beatings
from US military police and special forces soldiers. They are confined
to tiny rooms, blindfolded and thrown into walls. They are tied up in painful
positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep by having lights
shone on them all day and night. Sometimes they are forced to stand for
long periods in black hoods or wearing goggles which have been spray-painted
so as to render them blind.
-
- The aim is to disorientate and confuse the suspects,
as they face a barrage of questions about their activities in Afghanistan
and elsewhere. It is believed that some, who had battle wounds when captured,
are denied painkillers as a further way of coaxing information from them.
-
- 'Pain control is a very subjective thing,' one US official
said, deadpan, to the Washington Post last week.
-
- Those who do not crack, or perhaps have nothing to tell,
are often handed over to foreign intelligence services such as those of
Morocco or Saudi Arabia, where less sophisticated and bloodier torture
techniques are regularly employed.
-
- Critics point out that the US forces have picked up innocent
men before. In October three Afghan men were released without charge after
they had been held for a year at the American base at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba. They were given $500 compensation between them.
-
- So far the US has admitted that two men held at Bagram
have died in custody - one from a heart attack and the other from a pulmonary
embolism, or blood clot on the lung. A criminal investigation is now under
way, but no reason has been given of what caused the men's injuries.
-
- In the case of Begg, who grew up in the Moseley area
of Birmingham, the Americans have been equally silent. Foreign Office officials
admit that after 11 months of asking they have still not been able to see
him to check on his health. 'We are still pressing the Americans, but as
yet we have not been allowed access,' said a spokesman.
-
- Begg has not seen a lawyer, a Red Cross official or any
member of his family either since he was arrested in the Pakistani capital
of Islamabad last February.
-
- Just why the Briton was sought by the Americans is also
a mystery. But they wanted him badly. When the US bombing began in November
2001, Begg closed down the school he had opened in Kabul and moved to Pakistan.
It was there that he was arrested, bundled into a car and smuggled back
over the border into Afghanistan, first to Kandahar and then to Bagram.
-
- The last time his father, Azmat Begg, heard Moazzam's
voice was in a call from a mobile phone as his son lay in the boot of his
captors' vehicle. After a few panicky moments the call suddenly ended.
-
- Despite being a devout Muslim, Moazzam Begg attended
a Jewish primary school in the West Midlands. He studied law at a Birmingham
college but dropped out in 1994 to join a charity delivering aid to Muslims
in Bosnia.
-
- His family portray him as a family man who worked as
a translator and took his wife and three young children with him to Afghanistan.
-
- 'I am worried like a father who would worry about his
son,' said Azmat Begg, 64. 'He is a lovely and bright boy and obedient.
He never tells lies and always does the right thing. He told me he wanted
to start a school in Afghanistan to improve the literacy rates there.'
-
- Certainly his letter to his wife showed a man anguished
about his family. 'The most difficult thing in my life is being away from
you and the kids,' he wrote.
-
- However, security sources point to raids on Begg's British
home by anti-terrorist police. The first was several years ago and the
second was carried out last summer, when a computer, five floppy disks
and two CD-roms were taken. Neither raid resulted in any charges.
-
- But human rights activists say suspects at Bagram - whether
innocent or guilty - should not be tortured. This, they say, undermines
the war on terror.
-
- 'How can the US descend to the level of using terror
in the war on terror? What sort of victory is that? This is illegal and
it is appalling,' said Jamie Felner, a US director of Human Rights Watch.
-
- Amnesty International has also condemned the treatment
of detainees such as Begg. 'The US must ensure that its actions in relation
to those in custody comply with international law and standards,' said
a spokesperson. 'This is crucial if justice is to be done.'
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2002 http://www.observer.co.uk/waronterrorism/story/0,1373,866168,00.html
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From L. Cabirac
mcabirac@brandywine.net
12-30-2
-
- Dear Mr. Rense,
-
- Thank you for posting the information today about Moazzam
Begg's plight as a British prisoner in the Bagram detention camp near Kabul,
Afghanistan. Mr. Begg's unknown condition and legal status are deeply troubling
to me, as a U.S. citizen, especially given the fact that others have died
of possible torture while housed in the metal shipping containers in that
"facility".
-
- I keep contact information for Amnesty International
bookmarked for just such reports on your website, and would like to share
two of them in case your readers would like to e-mail Amnesty with their
own concerns. I don't know yet if Mr. Begg is one of Amnesty's focus cases
yet, and have written them to inquire about this. Perhaps you could attach
these links at the bottom of all such Rense.com articles as a public service?
-
- The two e-mail addresses (and there are many more listed
on Amnesty's website) are info@amnesty.org.uk and admin-us@aiusa.org
-
- The first address is for the UK and the second one is
for the US.
-
- Happy New Year, and thank you for your tireless work.
-
- Sincerely,
-
- L. Cabirac
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Ned Parker
- 1-7-3
-
-
- As a British Christian, I would like to thank you (Paul
Harris and Burhan Wazir) for your article about Mozzam Begg's illegal treatment
in Afghanistan. That he may have sympathies for, or even be conected with
any Islamic militant organisation is of no concern to me whatsoever. He
is a human being, and what is more he is a British human being.
-
- As a country we may be forced into impotence by our American
cousins to do anything about the treatment of so many victims of this war
against terror. Yet we are the only nation in the world to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder"
with this oppresive regime, and if we are to whore ourselves to them, then
we should at least be able to secure the right to detain our own nationals.
Our nation is no stranger to government abuse of power and the waving of
legal rights, Northern Ireland is littered with examples of our shameful
past. But even by these standards, to permit another coutry to administer
these crimes against our own citizens must be a new all time low.
-
- I only hope that I never upset the 'land of the free',
as I now see that my government would be quite happy to leave me to imprisonment
and torture for the sake of our 'special relationship'. Or would they?
I am white, English and Christian. I have a strange feeling that I would
fair better.
- Thank you for writing with clarity whilst so many stay
silent.
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