integrate into society. He has travelled on speaking tours, and worked to persuade governments to accept former detainees for resettlement. In 2010, Cynthia Stroum, then-U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg, commented "Mr Begg is doing our work for us...", adding that Begg's "articulate, reasoned presentation makes for a convincing argument". In December 2005, Begg made a video appeal to the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, the Iraqi kidnappers of four Western peace workers, asking for their release. There was an inter-faith effort calling for the men's release. Abu Qatada, a detainee held in Britain also appealed for release of the men. In early March 2006, the body of the American hostage, Tom Fox, was found in Baghdad. A week-long military operation led by British forces secured the release of the remaining three hostages, one Briton and two Canadians, later that month. In 2010, when CAGE had recently expanded its work to include the highlighting of the use of drone strikes for extrajudicial killings, Begg said that little had changed despite Barack Obama's promises: "We say that Bush was the president of torture, but Obama is the president of extra-judicial killing . . . while one used to extra-judicially detain people, the other has gone a step further and extra-judicially kills them". Speaking of Guantánamo, Begg said that recently released detainees had told him that conditions had improved slightly after Obama came to power, but none believed it would close: "It is like a town now and every thing around it has continued to expand. It seems that this is a permanent facility and they intend to keep it as such". Following the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, in which over 130 pupils and teachers were killed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Begg wrote a comment on Facebook which was reported in his home town's main newspaper, the Birmingham Post. Begg stated that 'It is time to stop this cycle of uncontrolled rage and internecine violence that will only drive us to the pits of hell. Incessant calls for revenge each time need to be tempered with reflections on the consequences of what that means. There are no winners in this'. Speaker and activist As director of outreach for the prisoner rights organisation, CAGE, Begg has appeared in the media and around the country, lecturing on issues pertaining to the British Muslim community, such as imprisonment without trial, torture, anti-terror legislation and measures and community relations.