Guantanamo man tells of campaign

Campaigning has kept Mr Begg from becoming a recluse, he says

A Briton freed from Guantanamo Bay four years after he was seized by the CIA has told of his campaign to release five UK residents still held in Cuba.

Moazzam Begg, 37, from Birmingham, told the BBC there was "some onus" on the government to repatriate the five.

During his detention he had met two of the men, including Bisher al-Rawi, who had facial marks and showed the "remnants of a beating", he said.

His campaign to help was keeping him from becoming a recluse, he added.

Government 'duty'

"Although these people are not British citizens, their families certainly are, their children are," he said.

"The fact that the British government had given them leave to stay or the status as political refugees, I think there is some onus on them, some duty to work for their repatriation and their rights."

Moazzam Begg was released in January, along with another three men, after a high-profile campaign for his release by his father Azmat.

While Moazzam Begg acknowledges he did visit two training camps in Afghanistan, he says he was there as an observer only.

Mr Begg's father Azmat vociferously campaigned for his release

Since his release, the father-of-four has been trying to readjust to normal life.

But one of the things always on his mind was the "torture and maltreatment" of people who had not had recourse to a legal system, he said.

"If you have committed a crime, in any country, then you take them to a legal system. They charge them and present them to a court."

Asked if he wanted to clear his name, he said as he had never been accused of anything, he considered it already cleared.

'Crusade against Islam'

He also said there had been a rise in Islamaphobia since the 11 September attacks, saying the language used by President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the "hawks at the Pentagon" suggested as much.

"It was clear it was going to be crusade, a war against Islamic countries," he said.

All of this crying out of people to beware of all these fundamentalist Muslims running rampant, a threat, throughout the UK and Europe, it really needs a cap on it Moazzam Begg

"I think the voice of reason is getting drowned."

But while he was incarcerated he had "always maintained the myth that the British are really not so bad".

"Britain, compared to the rest of Europe and even America and even Muslim countries, is a brilliant place for Muslims to be," he said.

"We've got so many freedoms here in this place, which I am grateful for."

But this was beginning to "mutate and change", he added.

"All of this crying out of people to beware of all these fundamentalist Muslims running rampant, a threat, throughout the UK and Europe, it really needs a cap on it, it really needs to be put into perspective, and that's one of the things I am really worried about," he said.