CAIRO, 5 October 2004 — The once-innocuous orange jumpsuit, guilty of being nothing more than a fashion eyesore, has come to symbolize torture and death in this New World Order. Many are being forced to don this ugly garb but two, in particular, have much in common. Both were kidnapped from their homes, chained and incarcerated. Both have allegedly witnessed killings at the hands of their captors; both are being kept in solitary confinement without recourse to friends, family or lawyers and their respective futures sway in the balance.

While both are British passport holders, one boasts Irish roots and the other Pakistani. In the case of both, the British government has little or no say in their ultimate destinies — or so it says.

From here on the stories of Kenneth Bigley, who worked in Iraq to boost his retirement income, and Moazzam Begg, a teacher, who hoped to build a school in Afghanistan, differ in detail, if not substance.

The former is being held by a group of extremists driven by their own perverted ideology, while the other has suffered for years at the hands of the Bush administration in a shameful hell on earth called Guantanamo Bay.

We’ve all heard the anguished pleas of Ken Bigley and his fiery Liverpool-Irish family, who have pulled out all the stops to get him released. There have been candle-lit vigils in his hometown, while British Muslims have traveled to Baghdad to talk with the Iraqi interim president and influential clerics.

Terry Waite, a former hostage in Lebanon, spent hours comforting the family and Yusuf Islam (formerly the singer Cat Stevens) has urged Ken Bigley’s release.

Bigley’s ailing octogenarian mother Lil, his son and brother have been deluged with well wishes, his Thai wife lights candles for the safe return of her husband, vowing to become a Buddhist nun if things go wrong, while his Amsterdam-based brother Paul has slammed Tony Blair’s inaction and called for the British prime minister to quit. Paul Bigley claims the Qatar-based Arabic news network Al-Jazeera has done more to help his brother than Downing Street.

Last week, Paul Bigley finally got his government’s attention. He says Dutch officials along with a representative of the British Foreign Office raided his home, copied his computer’s hard disk and forced him to sign a five-page document. The British and Dutch governments deny this, maintaining they were invited in for a friendly exchange.

Sunday, there was cautious good news. According to The Independent , the Iraqi cleric Imam Syed Al-Kareem has met with Ken Bigley and his abductors.

The London daily quotes a website on which the imam says: “The captors have asked for clarification of (Bigley’s) Irish heritage. They clearly stated to me that they have no fight with the Irish people...they said, ‘The Irish have fought like us to wipe the stain of English imperialism, murder and rape from their lands’.”

Other intelligence reports say Bigley is now in the hands of another group of kidnappers, who may be willing to accept a ransom in return for his life.

Another report in The Guardian reads: “British police are investigating a claim that Ken Bigley... will be freed if the UK government releases around a dozen high-profile detainees”. It matters little whether Bigley benefits from the “Luck of the Irish’ or is the indirect beneficiary of a hefty sum or a prisoner swap, as long as he eventually walks free in the same way the Italian aid workers did — but what of Bigley’s countryman Moazzam Begg? What are his chances of going home any time soon?

Like Bigley’s loved ones, the Begg family has been working hard to raise Moazzam’s profile. Begg is currently being held as “an enemy combatant” even though members of Pakistan’s intelligence services allegedly dragged him out of his bed in Pakistan and drove him to Afghanistan in the trunk of a car, where he was handed over to the US. There, he allegedly witnessed US soldiers kill two of his fellow detainees. It is for this reason Begg’s British lawyer believes he has been held in solitary confinement at Camp Delta for two years.

Like Bigley’s wife, Begg’s Palestinian-born wife Sally has cried rivers of tears, except she has been virtually ignored by the cameras. Sally Begg describes the day her husband was taken thus: “... we were all asleep. Pakistani police — men and women — woke us, went through the house, took our money, phone, computer, and took Moazzam away...I felt there must be some mistake. There was a British Embassy. He was British-born. He would be back in a few hours.” Sally found herself pregnant, penniless and alone in a strange country with three young children in tow.

An uncensored letter written by Begg addressed to his family, lawyers, British officials and various human rights groups somehow managed to pass the portals of Camp Delta uncensored. In it he claims innocence, although no charges have been presented, and describes himself as a law-abiding British citizen, who has never had anything to do with Osama Bin Laden or his organization. Like his fellow British detainees — several of whom have been released — he alleges he was tortured, forced to sign false confessions and made to suffer the indignities of being stripped naked.

Governments, NGOs, human rights organizations, US courts and even Britain’s Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith have condemned Guantanamo’s kangaroo tribunals, yet the Pentagon, already irreparably stained over the abuses at Abu Ghraib, chooses to turn a deaf ear. In the same way the actions of terrorist groups, who have hijacked Islam, besmirch the good name of Muslims everywhere, Guantanamo ensures the US can no longer be considered a beacon of human rights and civil liberties.

It is true that Ken Bigley’s captors have dressed him in orange and shown videos of their hostage in chains and behind wire to draw attention to Guantanamo. For this reason, some might wish to discard their point on principle.

But we should contemplate on this: Just because barbaric criminals espouse a cause, this does not necessarily mean the cause itself is without merit. In the same way, the cause of so-called “good men” claiming to protect their country while employing dubious methods to do so is not necessarily honorable or right. Unless we can learn to distinguish the merits of various causes from unworthy supporters, or religions from misguided believers, then we ourselves are likely to end up confused.

As for Bigley and Begg, two family men in the wrong place at the wrong time being held for the wrong reasons, their only cause is to be allowed to go home.

And so they should. It is up to their respective captors to show basic human decency and compassion to ensure that they do...and soon.

— Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback at [email protected]