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Cage (organisation)

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Cage
FormationOctober 2003 (2003-10)
TypeAdvocacy organisation with a focus on Muslim detainees
PurposeTo raise awareness of the plight of the detainees held as part of the War on Terror and to "empower communities impacted by the War on Terror"
HeadquartersLondon, England
Director
Adnan Siddiqui[1]
Websitewww.cage.ngo
Formerly called
Cageprisoners

Cage is a London-based advocacy organisation which aims to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror. Cage highlights and campaigns against state policies, developed as part of the War on Terror. The organisation was formed to raise awareness of the plight of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere and has worked closely with former detainees held by the United States and campaigns on behalf of current detainees held without trial.

Cage was formerly known as Cageprisoners, and is ordinarily styled as "CAGE".

Aims

The cell in which a Guantánamo Bay prisoner was detained. Inset is the prisoners' reading room

Cage campaigns against torture, imprisonment without trial, 'draconian' anti-terror laws and similar issues. Human rights groups have also said that Cage is doing vital work. Cage has spoken out against the UK's anti-terrorism laws.[2]

Cage offers support to those denied due process regarding terrorism offences through casework, advocacy and research. They document cases such as miscarriages of justice. Cage have developed trust of Muslims who have been subjected to torture, harassment and other abuses, by informing them of their rights and putting them in touch with lawyers. They have also campaigned for the release of hostages.[3]

According to The Guardian newspaper, Cage's campaigns to help former detainees re-integrate into society have been praised by Cynthia Stroum, the US Ambassador to Luxembourg.[4]

Background

Cage's website was launched in October 2003. It was among the leading organisations which worked on publicising the names of the detainees at Guantanamo.[3] Due to refusal by the U.S. government to publish a list of names until a Freedom of Information lawsuit in 2006,[5] it published names, photos and other information about detainees obtained from detainees' families[6] The U.S. government's refusal impeded the efforts of lawyers who had wished to represent the detainees there.[7]

Cage was formerly Cageprisoners Ltd, and is sometimes styled as "CAGE".

CAGE outreach director, Moazzam Begg

Cage's outreach director, Moazzam Begg, is a Briton from Birmingham who was held for three years by the United States government in extrajudicial detention as a suspected enemy combatant at Bagram in Afghanistan, and the Guantánamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. He was released without charge in 2005.[8] He has worked to represent detainees still held at Guantánamo, as well as to help former detainees become re-integrated into society. He has also been working with governments to persuade them to accept non-national former detainees, some of whom have been refused entry by their countries of origin. Begg has played a crucial role in proving UK complicity in US imprisonment and torture in Bagram and elsewhere, and aided detainees seeking admission and compensation from the UK government.

Controversies and criticisms

Anwar al-Awlaki

Anwar al-Awlaki

After Anwar al-Awlaki's release from Yemeni detention in 2007. Cage invited the cleric to address their Ramadan fundraising dinners in August 2008 (at Wandsworth Civic Centre, South London, by videolink, as he was banned from entering the UK) and August 2009 at Kensington Town Hall.[9] Awlaki was killed by the US in a 2011 drone strike.[10]

Amnesty International

In February 2010, Amnesty International suspended Gita Sahgal, its gender unit head, after she criticised Amnesty for its links with Begg.

Mohamed Emwazi ('Jihadi John')

In February 2015, Mohamed Emwazi, a 27-year-old Briton, was identified as the probable masked beheader of civilian captives of ISIS in Syria. Emwazi had, between 2009 and January 2012, been in contact with Cage while in the UK, complaining that he was being harassed by British intelligence agencies.[11] At a press conference the following day, Cage's research director, Asim Qureshi, said Emwazi had been "a beautiful young man"[12] and "extremely kind, gentle and soft-spoken". In Qureshi's view, Emwazi's contact with the UK security services had contributed to his transformation into a killer.[13]

Individuals are prevented from travelling, placed under house arrest and in the worst cases tortured, rendered or killed, seemingly on the whim of security agents.

— Cage

Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson both decried the suggestion that Emwazi's radicalisation was the fault of British authorities.[14] According to the BBC, "Human rights groups say they [Cage] are doing 'vital work' but critics have called the organisation 'apologists for terror'."[2] The Labour Member of Parliament (MP) John Spellar encouraged charities which funded Cage to rethink in light of their recent comments.[15] An article published in Open Democracy in July 2015 described media response in relation to Qureshi's comments as 'both overwrought and plainly misleading; not to mention a serious dereliction of the journalistic duty to hold power to account.'.[3] Partly as a result of Qureshi's statement, the Charity Commission pressured charities that had previously funded Cage to cease doing so.,[16][17] but changed their position on this in October 2015. Following Emwazi's death in a drone strike in November 2015 in the Syrian Civil War, Cage was among those who expressed dissatisfaction that he had not been brought to trial.[18]

Michael Adebolajo

Following the murder of Lee Rigby by Michael Adebalajo in May 2013, Cage reported that Adebolajo had suffered harassment from security services before the offence. A report by the Intelligence and Security Committee of the British parliament later confirmed that the British government may have been complicit in his treatment.[19]

Muhammad Rabbani conviction

On 25 September 2017, Muhammad Rabbani, the international director of Cage, was found guilty at Westminster Magistrates Court of having wilfully obstructed police at Heathrow Airport by refusing to divulge the passwords to his mobile phone and laptop computer. Rabbani was given a conditional discharge for 12 months and ordered to pay £620 costs. Rabbani had been stopped whilst returning from Qatar, where Rabbani said he had interviewed a man to collect evidence for UK lawyers of that man's claims of having been tortured while in US custody. On two previous occasions Rabbani had refused to hand over passwords at ports and airports and had been allowed to pass.[20]

Gareth Peirce, Rabbani's solicitor, said the verdict would be challenged in the UK High Court. The verdict confirmed that UK police have the powers under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to demand access to electronic devices. Rabbani claimed that he had been protecting the confidentiality of his client.[20] Rabbani and Cage described the conviction as a "moral victory" against Schedule 7.[21][22]

Charitable funding

Between 2007 and 2014, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust gave grants to Cage totalling £271,250. In a similar period, the Roddick Foundation, founded by Anita Roddick, gave grants totalling £120,000. In 2015, following pressure from the UK government's Charity Commission, which had expressed concern that funding Cage risked damaging public confidence in charity, both entities agreed to cease funding Cage.[16]

The Rowntree Trust defended its funding in a statement, commenting, "We believe (Cage) has played an important role in highlighting the ongoing abuses at Guantanamo Bay and at many other sites around the world, including many instances of torture".[15] Cage said that the majority of their income comes from private individuals and that the group "would continue its work regardless of the criticism levelled at it ... even though we aren't a proselytizing organisation, we are a Muslim response to a problem that largely affects Muslims".[15]

In October 2015, following an application for judicial review by Cage, the Charity Commission changed its position and said it would not in future interfere in the discretion of charities to choose to fund Cage. The judicial review heard evidence that Theresa Villiers, a British Cabinet Minister, and US intelligence had both applied pressure on the charity commission to investigate Cage, with US intelligence agents describing Cage as a "jihadist front".[23]

Zakat

In 2014, Cage held an online discussion about Zakat (the Muslim religious obligation for charitable giving) and the Muslim obligation to prisoners. It appealed to Muslims to make donations to help free those unjustly imprisoned in Guantánamo and elsewhere.[24]

Libel case against The Times

In December 2020, Cage and Moazzam Begg received damages of £30,000 plus costs in a libel case they had brought against The Times newspaper. In June 2020, a report in The Times had suggested that Cage and Begg were supporting a man who had been arrested in relation to a knife attack in Reading in which three men were murdered. The Times report also suggested that Cage and Begg were excusing the actions of the accused man by mentioning mistakes made by the police and others. In addition to paying damages, The Times printed an apology. Cage stated that the damages amount would be used to "expose state-sponsored Islamophobia and those complicit with it in the press. ... The Murdoch press empire has actively supported xenophobic elements and undermined principles of open society and accountability. ... We will continue to shine a light on war criminals and torture apologists and press barons who fan the flames of hate".[25]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Meet our team". Cage. Archived from the original on 26 November 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  2. ^ a b McMicking, Henrietta (27 February 2015). "Cage: Important human rights group or apologists for terror?". BBC News. Archived from the original on 20 March 2017. Retrieved 19 March 2017.
  3. ^ a b c "Apologists for terror or defenders of human rights? The Cage controversy in context". openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  4. ^ MacAskill, Ewen (30 November 2010). "WikiLeaks cables show US U-turn over ex-Guantánamo inmate". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2016.
  5. ^ "U.S. Reveals Identities of Detainees". The New York Times. Associated Press. 4 March 2006. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  6. ^ "Names of the Detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba". The Washington Post. 15 March 2006. Archived from the original on 9 November 2012.
  7. ^ Rosenberg, Carol (15 June 2021). "An Updated Tool for Tracking the Detainees of Guantánamo Bay". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  8. ^ Tim Golden (15 June 2006). "Jihadist or Victim: Ex-Detainee Makes a Case". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 31 March 2014.
  9. ^ Sawer, Patrick, and Barrett, David, "Detroit bomber's mentor continues to influence British mosques and universities", The Telegraph, 2 January 2010, accessed 15 November 2016.
  10. ^ "Two U.S.-Born Terrorists Killed in CIA-Led Drone Strike". Fox News. 30 September 2011. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011.
  11. ^ Ramesh, Randeep; Jalabi, Raya (3 March 2015). "Mohammed Emwazi tapes: '9/11 was wrong'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 March 2017. Retrieved 19 March 2017.
  12. ^ "IS 'Jihadi John' suspect 'a beautiful young man' – Cage". BBC. 26 February 2015. Archived from the original on 30 May 2016. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  13. ^ "'Jihadi John' Used To Be 'Kind And Gentle'". Sky News. 27 February 2015. Archived from the original on 27 February 2015. Retrieved 27 February 2015.
  14. ^ "Jihadi John: Activist who praised Mohammed Emwazi as "beautiful" caught on video backing jihad". The Telegraph. 27 February 2015. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  15. ^ a b c "Charities that funded Cage, one time supporter of IS's Emwazi, under pressure". Reuters. 4 March 2015. Archived from the original on 5 March 2015.
  16. ^ a b "Charities sever ties with pressure group Cage over Mohammed Emwazi links". The Guardian. 6 March 2015. Archived from the original on 21 December 2016. Retrieved 11 December 2016.
  17. ^ "Amnesty International considers cutting links with pressure group Cage". The Guardian. 2 March 2015. Archived from the original on 22 January 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2016.
  18. ^ "Jihadi John 'dead': Jeremy Corbyn says 'far better' if militant had been tried in court rather than killed". The Independent. 14 November 2015. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  19. ^ "Cage: the campaigners put in the spotlight by Mohammed Emwazi". the Guardian. 26 February 2015. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  20. ^ a b Bowcott, Owen (25 September 2017). "Campaign group chief found guilty of refusing to divulge passwords Campaign group chief found guilty of refusing to divulge passwords". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
  21. ^ "Muhammad Rabbani: "we have won the moral argument"". Press release. Cage. 25 September 2017. Archived from the original on 27 November 2017. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  22. ^ "Rabbani Trial Reactions: A Moral Victory Against Schedule 7". Cage. 27 September 2017. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  23. ^ Ramesh, Randeep (21 October 2015). "Charities can fund Cage campaign group, commission agrees". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  24. ^ "Zakah and the forgotten Islamic obligation towards prisoners". Archived from the original on 19 March 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2017. This Ramadan, give your support to the cause of the oppressed by paying your zakah and sadaqah to CAGE. Any money we collect in Zakah is restricted to matters which directly benefit prisoners' cases
  25. ^ Sabin, Lamiat (4 December 2020). "The Times pays £30k damages over article defaming Muslim activists". Morning Star. Archived from the original on 7 December 2020. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
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