It was at Christmas:
"Amid terrorism fears in Europe, rights groups fear overreaction" by Griff Witte, Washington Post December 25, 2014
BIRMINGHAM, England — As a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, Moazzam Begg’s only escape was in his dreams — his nightly chance to leave the grim confines of his US military cell and return to his family in England.
Gandhi once said "they may torture my body, may break my bones, even kill me . . . They will then have my dead body – not my obedience."
But after being held for seven months this year at a maximum security British prison on terrorism charges that were ultimately dropped, Begg, now free, has seen his dreams turn to nightmares. He was imprisoned nearly four years on three continents by the West’s two leading powers, without a trial.
Amid a wave of terrorism-related anxiety sweeping Europe as fighters return from Syria, he fears it’s only a matter of time before he’s arrested again.
‘‘How many prisons? How many police stations? How many secret detention sites are they going to put me in, and then not try me?’’ said Begg, his face scarred, he says by beatings endured in US custody.
Begg has long been a vocal critic of the sort of post-9/11 brutality documented this month in chilling detail by the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture. But his most recent detention has become emblematic of what human rights groups, Muslim leaders, terrorism experts, and even some security officials say is an overzealous response to the threat posed by European returnees from Syria.
What is even worse is the fraudulent and false flag nature by which the torture is based; the tortured can't know anything because the torturers are the terrorists. It's all abominable suffering so that the show of propaganda can be reinforced.
Thousands of Europeans have flocked to Syria to fight the regime of President Bashar Assad, and many have linked up with the Islamic State or other extremist groups.
And then we had the French false flag fake, etc, etc. It's all agenda all the time in the propaganda pre$$.
Speaking on propaganda videos, European fighters have called on their countrymen to carry out attacks at home. When US and British hostages were decapitated, it was a Brit who wielded the knife.
Except it's all a bunch of lopping lies, staged and scripted propaganda for Amurkn's consumption.
And yet, critics say, European governments may be exacerbating the problem with a heavy-handed response that includes mandatory arrests of returnees, lengthy prison sentences, and a lack of alternatives, including reintegration programs.
And yet somehow, the French guys and the rest all had attack plans, blah, blah, f***ing, blah.
‘‘Arresting and prosecuting people doesn’t really tackle the root causes of the problem,’’ said Imran Awan, a criminologist at Birmingham City University who studies counterterrorism strategies. ‘‘You just alienate and isolate people even more if the government is locking people up and throwing away the key.’’
Government does not care.
Policies are expected to get tougher as governments push legislation authorizing new powers to seize passports. In Britain, the government has fast-tracked a bill to prevent former fighters from returning home for up to two years, temporarily stripping them of their rights as British citizens.
Not to be a jerk, but I Begg your pardon? Isn't that what this article was about?
Experts say the policies fail to distinguish between hardened extremists and those who travel to Syria for other reasons, including humanitarian concerns and an interest in toppling a Western enemy: Assad.
Begg, for instance, was arrested in February on charges stemming from his travels to Syria in 2012 and early 2013, before the Islamic State even existed in its current form. Begg said that he never fought, but he acknowledged working with some of the rebels that Britain and the United States were backing.
Oh, please!
Nearly a year after his return from Syria, Begg was charged with attending a terrorist training camp. The case collapsed in October, after Britain’s main domestic intelligence service, MI5, acknowledged Begg told them of his plans beforehand.
Begg makes no secret of his hard-line Islamist sympathies, having operated a bookstore that was a hub for British jihadists and moving his family to Afghanistan in 2001 to live under the Taliban. But he has denied participating in violence or being affiliated with terrorist organizations.
Yeah, no kidding?
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The guy stinks of sheep-dipping, folks.
FLASHBACK:
"UK police arrest ex-Guantanamo detainee over Syria" Associated Press, February 26, 2014
LONDON — A former Guantanamo Bay detainee who is a well-known advocate
for the rights of terrorism suspects was arrested Tuesday on suspicion
of Syria-related terrorism offenses, British police said.
West Midlands police said Moazzam Begg was one of four people detained in the Birmingham area of central England.
Police said Begg, 45, is suspected of attending a terrorist training camp and facilitating terrorism overseas.
He was arrested along with a 44-year-old woman, her 20-year-old son, and
a 36-year-old man, all suspected of facilitating terrorism overseas.
Their names were not released.
Police in Britain do not usually name suspects until they are charged. The force said it was identifying Begg to the media ‘‘as a result of the anticipated high public interest.’’
The four suspects were being questioned at a Birmingham police station and their homes were searched.
In 2002, Begg was arrested in Pakistan as an ‘‘enemy combatant.’’ He was
detained by US forces at Bagram in Afghanistan and later sent to the
prison camp in Cuba.
After his release without charge in 2005 he became a director of the advocacy group Cage, which campaigns against alleged abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism. He is a well-known figure who appears frequently in British media.
Cage called Begg’s arrest a government attempt ‘‘to ensure that any
travel to Syria is deemed suspicious’’ and to criminalize legitimate
activism.
It's why they are cracking down on the Syrian straw man.
British officials say hundreds of Britons have traveled to Syria to join
the battle against the forces of President Bashar Assad. Authorities
fear they could present a risk when they return home after fighting with Al Qaeda-affiliated groups.
British police have stepped up arrests over suspected Syria-related terrorism.
Begg has said that authorities revoked his British passport last year, even though his trips to Syria in 2012 were approved by Britain’s domestic intelligence service.
He is an MI6 agent!
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