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On 14 April 2013, CagePrisoners had the pleasure to speak in Brussels at a conference organised by the Collectif Réflexions Musulmanes (CRM). The enthusiasm was palpable at the venue since it was perhaps the first gathering of this kind in Belgium.

“There is no celebration marking the 10th anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s statue destruction, rather [there are] popular protests” Wadah Khanfar, President of Al Sharq Forum and former Director General for Al Jazeera

Muslims sometimes get paranoid (often rightly so), thinking they are being observed by security agencies or placed under some sort of lists due to a loose definition of extremism. Actually, there is an easy way to know if you have indeed been profiled by the police.

In 2009, The Guardian published a very simple step-by-step process (reproduced below) allowing you to find out if you are on the main secret database of political activists.

Feel free to let us know what result you get at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The re-arrest of Abu Qatada hit the headlines on Friday evening. He was conveniently taken to Belmarsh prison just a day and a half before a government bid to have him deported to Jordan where he faces a possible conviction based on torture evidence. 

Centuries before Guantanamo, Muslims were abducted, sold and transported to the Americas to become slaves there. Back then already, such practices were facilitated by local and corrupt rulers.

However, some men of wisdom rose up against this injustice and left us words which our governments should ponder over.

Nasir al-Din was a 17^th century West African scholar who denounced and fought against the animist kings of his time because they sold their subjects to European slave traders under frivolous pretexts. He stated:

“God does not allow kings to raid, kill, or enslave their people; he has them, on the contrary, to guard them from their enemies. The peoples are not made for the kings but the kings are made for the peoples”.

Sign the petition to return Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo to the UK

Sign the petition to return Nabil Hadjarab from Guantanamo to France

The story of Nabil Hadjarab, an innocent French resident who has spent 11 years in Guantanamo Bay.

In a 35 minutes phone call he was permitted to give to his lawyer, Mahdi Hashi was able to give a glimpse of the mistreatment he suffered during his disappearance in East Africa. These revelations prove that Barack Obama, despite his words, is indeed a proud inheritor of the legacy of rendition and torture left by his predecessors.

Two years after the Tunisian spring, it seems that the country has completed its revolution literally and recommenced Ben Ali’s cycle of arbitrary detention.

Schedule 7 is a counter terrorism power allowing officers at ports and airports to stop, question or detain a person for up to 9 hours, search them and their belongings and question them on their political, social and religious views. Officers can do this without the individual being given the right to legal representation at the port and they can also take the person’s DNA or fingerprint sample which is placed on the same database as convicted terrorists regardless of innocence. Due to the way the powers have been constructed, there is an obligation to answer all the questions of the officials.