Moazzam Begg is one of nine British Muslims who were held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, by the government of the U.S. He was released without charge on January 25, 2005 along with Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar.

President Bush released Begg over the objections of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, who alleged that Mr. Begg could be a dangerous terrorist. After his release from Guantanamo, Begg appeared in the video "21st Century CrUSAders" and said the War on Terrorism is really akin to a war against Islam. The British government considers possession of this film to indicate possible radicalization.

Begg has become a well-known commentator on issues pertaining to the Muslim community in the UK and its anti-terror measures - both domestic and worldwide. He has appeared in numerous television interviews and documentaries, including Taking Liberties and the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side.

He has since toured as a speaker about his time in Guantanamo and other detention facilities, characterising the British response to terrorism as racist and disproportionate in comparison to anti-terror measures and legislation meted out during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. As spokesman for the prisoner rights organisation, Cageprisoners, Begg appears extensively both in the media and around the country, lecturing to large audiences on issues surrounding imprisonment without trial, torture, anti-terror legislation and community relations. He has authored numerous pieces that have appeared in major broadsheets and magazines around the world and, has written an award-winning book detailing life as a Muslim living in the UK and his further experiences in Guantánamo. Begg also acts in an advisory role to leading human rights organisations like Reprieve, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Peacemaker and Conflicts Forum.

Michael Freeman, BA (Cambridge), LLB (Stanford), PhD (Essex), Research Professor (part-time), Department of Government

Michael Freeman was the Deputy Director of the Human Rights Centre from 1989-1999 and the Director of the MA in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from 1991-2002. He is the Torgny Segerstedt Visiting Professor in the Center for the Study of Human Rights, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2006. His research interests include democratic theory, philosophy of social sciences, cosmopolitanism and theories of global politics, human rights, genocide, nationalism, multiculturalism and minority rights and ethnic conflict. He has previously taught at Edinburgh, and North Carolina. He has lectured on human rights in more that twenty countries, from China to Brazil. He has been Vice President of the Association of Genocide Studies, Chair of the Human Rights Research Committee of the International Political Science Association (1997-2000). Professor Freeman has published extensively on political theory, human rights and democratic theory, as well as on Asian values and human rights. He is the author of Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach (2002); Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism (1980); (co-ed) Frontiers of Political Theory (1980); Nationalism and Minorities (1995).

Sir Nigel Rodley KBE, LLB (Leeds), LLM (Columbia, NYU), PhD (Essex), Professor of Law

Nigel Rodley acted as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture from 1993 to 2001 and is currently a member of the UN Human Rights Committee. He is also a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists. He has worked at UN Headquarters in New York and was founding head of the legal office at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. Professor Rodley has taught human rights and international law at the University of Essex since 1990. He has also taught at Dalhousie University, the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research (New York), and at the London School of Economics. He has published widely in the field of international law and organisation, especially on human rights issues, focusing more recently on the treatment of prisoners and the prevention of torture. His works include The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law (1987, 1999); (ed) To Loose the Bands of Wickedness - International Intervention in Defence of Human Rights (1992); (with J I Domniguez, B Wood and R A Falk) Enchancing Global Human Rights (1979); (co-ed with C N Ronning) International Law in the Western Hemisphere (1974); (co-ed with Y Danieli and L Weisaeth) International Responses to Traumatic Stress (1995). Professor Rodley was awarded a knighthood in 1998 in recognition of his services to human rights and international law. The recipient of an honorary LLD from Dalhousie University (2000), he was awarded the American Society of International Law’s 2005 Goler T Butcher Medal for Outstanding Contribution to International Human Rights Law. He is currently Chair of the Human Rights Centre.

Richard Howitt is a Labour Member of the European Parliament for the East of England, first elected in 1994.

He is Vice Chair of the Human Rights Sub Committee, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and is the Labour European Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs. Richard is a member of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, and was recently a member of the Parliament mission to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, and to monitor the Palestinian Presidential elections.

He is also a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and is European Parliament Spokesperson on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). He successfully led the preparation of the Parliamentary report on CSR, which represented a major step towards establishing international regulation for multinational companies. Richard has also been European Parliament representative at the EU Multistakeholder Forum on CSR,and has organised annual hearings in the European Parliament on the impact of European enterprises on developing countries.

He was a member of the EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly and Parliament's Development Committee for nine years, regularly campaigns to raise awareness of Fair Trade issues, and has written a number of parliamentary reports on Europe's relations with developing countries.

Richard is the President of the All-Party Disability Intergroup at the European Parliament and Labour's European Disability Rights spokesperson. He has campaigned on social, anti-discrimination and, in particular, disability issues for many years, campaigned for disability to be considered a human rights issue, and previously worked in community care for people with disabilities.

Eleven years an elected councillor, three as Leader of Harlow Council, Richard speaks on local government issues in the European Parliament, and is European vice-president of Britain’s Local Government Association.