Rabbani is the 36-year-old general director of Cage, a British group that was established in 2003 to raise consciousness about the plight of prisoners held at the U.S. government’s Guantánamo Bay retention site. Today, the company has a broader focus and states it is working to highlight “the decay of the rule of law in the circumstances of the war on terror.” Due to its work fighting for the legal rights of terrorism suspects, Cage has brought controversy, and Rabbani has met the government’s wrath.
Rabbani was retreating to London after a business trip to one of the Gulf states. He had held a meeting with a man whom he says was earlier detained by U.S. authorities and admitted “years of torture” at the instructions of his American captors. The man provided Rabbani with news about his treatment, including names of appropriate individuals allegedly engaged in carrying out the acts of torture. These parts, Rabbani says, were given on a confidential basis and were to be practiced by Cage as part of a continuing legal action against the U.S. government.
As he landed back at Heathrow, Rabbani was drawn aside by a police counterterrorism officer at the passport control desk. At first, the discussion was polite. But the tone shifted when the officer began asking Rabbani about his work for Cage. He demanded that Rabbani accompany him to a chamber inside the airport where he would be reduced to a formal “examination” under Schedule 7, which is thought to be used solely to define whether a person is undeviatingly involved in the “commission, preparation or influence of acts of terrorism.”
In the examination room, there were two police officers who examined all of Rabbani’s luggage and questioned him further about his travels Who did he meet? Where did he go? Where did he stay and for how long? After a while, the talk turned to the electronic devices Rabbani was packing, which included a silver MacBook Air, a SIM card, a flash drive, and an iPhone. The police asked Rabbani to turn over his passwords so that both could access the devices and said that if he did not give them, they would arrest him.
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