UK Muslim held in Guantanamo speaks at opening of Free Derry museum

[sonz]

Moazzam Begg, a 38-year old former Guantanamo Bay detainee, whose family are from Birmingham, will speak at the official opening of the new Museum of Free Derry in the Bogside this week, the Telegraph has learned.

Begg, a former teacher, spent three years at the U.S. controversial prison without being charged, before he was released after extensive effort by the British government.

The former Gitmo detainee will give a speech at the Bloody Sunday 35th anniversary commemorations.

According to Belfast Telegraph columnist Eamonn McCann, the story of Free Derry is tied to the struggle to protect freedoms throughout all troubled areas in the world.

"Guantanamo was subsequently dubbed inhumane and degrading by the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.

"We have invited all the people interned in 1971 from Derry to attend the opening as well and the families of everybody killed in the Free Derry area such as Ranger Best and Sammy Devenney and all the others."

"We will also be inviting schools, and all schools be they Protestant, Catholic, mixed to come to the museum," he said.

• Poll

A recent British Broadcasting Corp. poll on attitudes toward the United States and its president, found that Iraq war and the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are major international liabilities in terms of American esteem abroad.

The poll, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, surveyed 26,381 people in 25 countries.

''According to world public opinion, these days the U.S. government hardly seems to be able to do anything right,'' Steven Kull, PIPA director, said with a release of the poll.

Recent months witnessed the release of a number of Guantanamo detainees, but there are still about 400 foreign men and teens, none of them U.S. citizens, still being held at the detention facility in Cuba, most of them without being charged.

-- AJP and agencies