Cage (organisation)

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".

Activities
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.

Cage offers support to those denied due process regarding terrorism offences through casework, advocacy and research. The organisation also documents miscarriages of justice. Cage has developed the 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. Cage has also campaigned for the release of hostages held by the Islamic State.

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.

History
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. Due to the U.S. government's refusal to publish a list of names until a Freedom of Information lawsuit in 2006, it published names, photos and other information about detainees obtained from detainees' families. The U.S. government's refusal impeded the efforts of lawyers who had wished to represent the detainees there. Cage was formerly Cageprisoners Ltd, and is sometimes styled as "CAGE". 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. He has worked to represent detainees still held at Guantánamo, as well as to help former detainees re-integrate 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.

Anwar al-Awlaki address
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. U.S. authorities claimed that Awlaki was a recruiter for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and was involved in the radicalisation of terrorists such as Nidal Hassan, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Zachary Adam Chesser, Faisal Shahzad, and Roshonara Choudry. He was killed by the US in a 2011 drone strike.

Allegations of security service harassment
Following the murder of Lee Rigby by Michael Adebolajo 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.

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. At a press conference the following day, Cage's research director, Asim Qureshi, said Emwazi had been "a beautiful young man" 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. "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. According to the BBC, "Human rights groups say they [Cage] are doing 'vital work' but critics have called the organisation 'apologists for terror'." The Labour Member of Parliament (MP) John Spellar encouraged charities which funded Cage to rethink in light of their recent comments. 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.'. Partly as a result of Qureshi's statement, the Charity Commission pressured charities that had previously funded Cage to cease doing so, 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.

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. 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. Rabbani and Cage described the conviction as a "moral victory" against Schedule 7. The ordeal of Rabbani's arrest and trial is documented in the film Phantom Parrot.

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".

Michael Gove assessment
On 14 March 2024, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, speaking in Parliament, named the organisation as one of several which "give rise to concern" and which would be assessed against a newly introduced government definition of extremism.

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.

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". 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".

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".