Moazzam Begg, former Guantanamo Bay detainee addresses a UCL packed crowd on the 6th Anniversary of Gitmo’s opening, 14th January 2008

Recounting his own experiences of three years of imprisonment without charge or trial, he argued that the ‘war on terror’ has provided the backdrop to attacks on civil liberties. Comparing UK legislation designed to tackle Islamic extremism to the less severe impositions made during the IRA’s bombing campaign during the 1980s and 90s, he argued that the difference was due to racial differences in the identified ‘enemies’.

After his lecture he took a wide range of questions from students about his experience and about his outlook for the future of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, of which he is an outspoken critic.