This morning Moazzam Begg, the Director of the campaign group CAGE, was detained by counter-terrorism police in connection with visits to Syria, with media using terms such as “visiting terrorist training camps”.

Moazzam Begg has travelled across the Middle East and Muslim world often unearthing the Foreign Office and Security Services dirty little secrets. He has openly mentioned that his visits to Syria were to investigate the complicity between the UK and US intelligence services in the rendition and torture of suspects – and had drawn people’s attention to what has been happening in Syria on his return.

The detention bears all the hallmarks of a politically motivated action. Whether in Sisi’s Egypt, Putin’s Russia or Cameron’s Britain, one only has to make the accusation of being linked to ‘terrorism’ to smear political critics.

The aim of the detention of such a high profile activist would seem to be to make Muslims fearful about speaking in favour of those in Syria fighting against the Assad regime – and to silence them over speaking out against British state policies regarding Muslims.

This detention maybe the latest episode in using laws, which were originally justified to keep the UK public safe, for politically motivated reasons that have nothing to do with public safety. Indeed, all too often “anti-terror” laws have been used for little more than to “terrorise” and attempt to silence members of the Muslim community.

We would encourage all Muslims to do the following:

1. Not to be deterred by this attempt to scaremonger in the Muslim community

2. Vocally support the sincere opposition in Syria, who are resisting Assad’s tyranny and who hope to replace it with the Islamic Khilafah State

3. Continue to offer their sadaqa to help those who are refugees and are suffering so greatly

4. Stand by other Muslims when they are accused, often arbitrarily, of crimes when they may not have done anything wrong.

Abdullah bin Umar narrated that Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: “A Muslim is a brother of another Muslim, so he should not oppress him, nor should he hand him over to an oppressor. Whoever fulfilled the needs of his brother, Allah will fulfill his needs; whoever brought his (Muslim) brother out of a discomfort, Allah will bring him out of the discomforts of the Day of Resurrection, and whoever screened a Muslim, Allah will screen him on the Day of Resurrection”.

Dr Abdul Wahid chairman of the executive committee Hizb ut-Tahrir UK