Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg recently sat down in his native Birmingham, England, for an interview with Washington Post London Bureau Chief Griff Witte to discuss Begg’s recent release from a British prison, the rise of the Islamic State and his friendship with his former Gitmo guards. The following are excerpts from the interview:

(Read: Amid terrorism fears in Europe, are security forces going too far?)

Washington Post: You spent seven months in prison this year. Why do you think they arrested you?

Moazzam Begg: Up until late August last year, the British government was seeking to bomb the Assad regime with air strikes. But then the policy changed. Cameron tried to get a vote in parliament and lost. It was I think within weeks of this failing that the first arrests, the first Syria-related arrests took place in Britain. And so policy clearly changed.

WP: But that still doesn't explain why they would go after you.

MB: Because they wanted to send a message that I am the most high profile figure that they will get. It's going to send a shock towards everyone else. What they didn't bank on was my views. I wanted to go to court. I really wanted to have this case and all of its details brought out into court, to once and for all to have this showdown with the government.

WP: So you think it would have been embarrassing for the government?

MB: Very, very embarrassing. All the works that I have done over the past 10 years -- reaching out to former Guantanamo guards, trying to build a bridge between our communities and societies -- that would have flown in the face of everything they are trying to say. How can I be a terrorist?

WP: Have you been surprised at how many Britons have gone to Syria?

MB: No. I thought a lot more might have gone. In the great scheme of things, 500 out of a Muslim population of 3 million isn't really that much.

WP: And why do you think some are coming back?

MB: Oh, I know why they are coming back, because I was in prison with them. They came back because they didn't want to be part of the infighting. They came [to Syria] for a benign reason, which was to fight against the Assad regime. But our government can't see the difference. It says everyone is the same. And thus, it feeds into the ISIS argument.

WP: If you were advising the government on how it should be dealing with the issue of Britons going to fight in Syria and Britons returning from the fight in Syria, what would you tell them?

MB: Every arrest that's taken place in the UK that's connected to Syria, including my own, has been followed by a public statement by the police where they say, ‘There was no imminent threat to the British public.’ It's a key statement. Nobody picks up on it. But they say it every single time, and they have to say it.

WP: I take your point that not everyone going to Syria was going to fight with the Islamic State. There are many other groups. But there are Britons who are going to fight with the Islamic State as well. Are those people not potentially a threat?

MB: Yes, there are threats from everything. There are threats from the IRA still to this day. But this abhorrent response, the likes of which we didn't even see when Britain got bombed in 2005. We never had these kind of laws and measures. There weren't this number of arrests taking place.

WP: How were you treated in prison?

MB: I was constantly comparing it to Guantanamo and Bagram, and there is no comparison. The worst British prison doesn't have anything on Guantanamo. So, in a philosophical way, I looked at it as a sort of a break time for my own reflection. Time to reflect, to be able to prepare for my case, meeting with other prisoners. In the recreation yard where we walk together, we are all friends and brothers. We pray together, we share our food. And that's precisely the kind of thing i have always been moved by. That's why I reached out to the Guantanamo guards. I like to break those stereotypes. I used to tell the fighters in Syria, when they would ask, ‘What are the Americans like?’ I'd say, ‘Well some of the guards and soldiers are my friends.’ They were shocked. I found that a way to remind them, listen guys, don't make this about sectarianism, don't make this about who is more Islamic and who isn't. Make this about what you claim to come here for, which is to help those innocent men, women and children who have been butchered.

WP: In terms of the returnees, what should the government be doing? If locking them up or prosecuting them is not the answer, what is the answer?

MB: From within Europe you have different countries doing different things. Britain is, as usual, one of the most draconian. But compare it to Sweden. Sweden doesn't prosecute anybody who’s been to Syria. The intelligence services are aware and they speak to them. But they don't prosecute anybody. The Danes have a program which attempts to rehabilitate with members of the community, crucially family members, under the watchful eye of the police.

WP: So this idea that returnees are going to go out on the streets and do jihad in Britain, you just don't see it. But there is obviously ISIS propaganda from Syria calling on people to do exactly that.

MB: Yes, there is. That's happened quite recently and hasn't happened in a vacuum. It hasn't happened for no reason. It's happened because Britain and America and everybody else has taken part in numerous military air strikes.

WP: But they executed Westerners.

MB: They did, and they executed many people before that. Whether it's James Foley, whether it’s Alan Henning, whether it's Steven Sotloff, whoever it was, I'm convinced that every single one of these people was assisting Syrians in the way that few others could. If you take James Foley for example, he was serving in Libya, getting out pictures of crimes committed by the Gaddafi regime. He was doing the same thing in Syria and he was a vital lifeline for the people in terms of what was happening there. Alan Henning, goodness. He'd been to Syria several times. A simple man, but one who cared so much that he was prepared to place himself in danger to help people. Peter Kessig, he became a Muslim.

People on the ground are more disgusted than the West is because they have seen their own compatriots killed by these people. They have more reason to be disgusted by the West, but not at the expense of their revolution.

WP: What do you think are the differences between this generation of young people who have gone to Syria to fight and previous generations that have gone to Bosnia, Chechnya, Pakistan?

MB: Twitter, Ask FM, Facebook, Youtube. Fast media. Instant information. Misinformation as well. Because of the nature of Twitter, because of the nature of social media, the deference to scholars is lost.

WP: So you think the ideology has changed?

MB: It's evolved. Al Qaeda used the language of justice. They wanted to be seen to be just. But you can't really do that when you are butchering everybody.

WP: If a young Brit in Birmingham came to you and said ‘I'm thinking of going to Syria,’ what would you say?

MB: I would say to them, ‘Listen, guys, I know what you are going through. I know why you want to go. The atrocities here far outweigh anything we have seen for a long time. But you are going to go to a place where you don't know anybody, you don’t speak the language, you don't understand the intricacies of the various groups.’ It's no longer what it was like when I went there. All the foreigners in the beginning were a source of benefit and help. Now Syrians see the foreigners, a large number of them, as a source of strife. I actually hate that because that would include me, no matter what I tried to do.

WP: Since you were released from prison, how have you been spending your time?

MB:What i am trying to do is speak against a tidal wave. That tidal wave is based clearly on ignorance, with a little bit of fear. And I think, to be honest, the overall population is much less afraid then we as Muslims. We are terrified. Muslims are terrified of the state. Yes, we are. I have been put in a state of constant terror.

WP: Do you fear you will be arrested again?

MB: I see it in my dreams and nightmares. How many times? How many prisons? How many police stations? How many secret detention sights are they going to put me in? And then not try me? And then not give me my day in court.

WP: You are pursuing civil action against the government. Where would you like to see that lead?

MB: An apology. I don't think I am going to get that. I don’t think these governments apologize. But if they wanted to shut me down, it didn't work. In fact it really had the opposite effect. I think my name was starting to mellow out. The Guantanamo story, nobody was really interested so much. But as Al Pacino says in the Godfather, ‘Just when I wanted to get out, they pull me right back in.’

WP: Have you seen any of your former Guantanamo guards since you were released?

MB: I love those guards. I really love them. There were several of them writing messages of support while I was in prison. One of them has been here to the UK. We have toured together. And we have spoken together on the varied experiences, and how in a sense it brutalized us both.

WP: How does the abuse that you endured, how does that still affect you?

MB: I put it aside now really. Guantanamo now even seems like a memory. And people ask me to comment on Guantanamo as an expert on it. I say I don't feel qualified anymore because it's been such a long time. It's been almost 10 years. Things have changed.