The measure of a society is not how it treats its citizens. It is how it treats those it has decided are no longer citizens.
CAGE (formerly Cageprisoners) is a London-based advocacy organisation founded in 2003 by Moazzam Begg, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, and Asim Qureshi. The organisation documents the cases of individuals detained, tortured, or killed in the context of the global War on Terror, with a specific focus on Muslim communities affected by counter-terrorism legislation and intelligence operations.
The organisation’s work sits at the intersection of legal advocacy, investigative journalism, and political campaigning. It has documented cases of extraordinary rendition, secret detention, torture with Western intelligence complicity, and the use of administrative detention without charge or trial. Its reports have been cited in parliamentary inquiries, legal proceedings, and international human rights documentation.
CAGE occupies a controversial position in UK public discourse. Its willingness to represent individuals accused of terrorism-related offences, and its willingness to question the legal frameworks that produce those accusations, has made it a target of government criticism and media scrutiny. The organisation’s critics frame its advocacy as sympathetic to extremism. Its defenders frame it as the only organisation willing to document what the state would prefer to remain undocumented.
The organisation is relevant to the vault’s framework because it documents precisely the kind of cases where the extremist label and the “jihadi” designation function as epistemic closures. When a man is labeled a jihadi, the conversation ends. CAGE’s work is to reopen it.