Detention is the process when a state, government or citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom of liberty at that time. This can be due to (pending) criminal charges being raised against the individual as part of a prosecution or to protect a person or property. Being detained does not always result in being taken to a particular area (generally called a detention centre), either for interrogation, or as punishment for a crime (see prison).

The term can also be used in reference to the holding of property, for the same reasons. The process of detainment may or may not have been preceded or followed with an arrest. The prisoners in Guantánamo Bay are for example referred to as "detainees".

Detainee is a term used by certain governments and their military to refer to individuals held in custody, such as those it does not classify and treat as either prisoners of war or suspects in criminal cases. It is used to refer to "any person captured or otherwise detained by an armed force." More generally, it is "someone held in custody."

Dante Terrell Smith (born December 11, 1973) is an American actor and MC, known by the stage names Mos Def ( /ˌmoʊsˈdɛf/) and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which released the album Black Star in 1998. He was a major force in late 1990s underground hip hop while with Rawkus Records. As a solo artist he has released the albums Black on Both Sides in 1999, The New Danger in 2004, True Magic in 2006, and The Ecstatic in 2009.

Although he was initially recognized for his musical output, since the early 2000s, Mos Def's screen work has established him as one of only a handful of rappers who has garnered critical acclaim for his acting work. He is well known for his portrayal of Brother Sam in the American drama series Dexter. Mos Def has also been active in several social and political causes.

He was born Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Sheron Smith and Abdul Rahman. He was raised by his mother in Brooklyn; his father lived in New Jersey. While his father was initially a member of the Nation of Islam and later an active member in the community of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, who merged into mainstream Islam from the Nation, Mos Def was not exposed to Islam until the age of 13. At 19, he took his shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith. He is friends with Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest.

Omar Deghayes (born November 28, 1969) is a Libyan citizen with residency status in the United Kingdom, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He currently lives in the United Kingdom. After his arrest, he was taken into US military custody and sent to Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 727.

His lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith alleges that Deghayes was blinded by pepper spray inside the prison.

Deghayes' father was a union organiser who was executed in Libya while Omar was still a child.^{[citation needed]} After this the family moved to the United Kingdom as refugees. They lived in Brighton According to the Birmingham Post Deghayes was a "laws graduate"; he studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and later studied in Huddersfield.

His family has mounted a campaign to free Deghayes. This campaign has received the support of the Brighton Argus newspaper and all six Members of Parliament in Sussex, where Omar Deghayes resided for many years and where his family still live.

Moazzam Begg (Urdu: مواظم بیگ) (born in 1968 in Sparkhill, Birmingham, England), is a British Pakistani Muslim who was held in extrajudicial detention in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, by the U.S. government for nearly three years.

The Pentagon claimed Begg was an enemy combatant and al-Qaeda member, recruited others for al-Qaeda, provided money and support to al-Qaeda training camps, received extensive military training in al-Qaeda-run terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, and prepared to fight U.S. or allied troops. While Begg admits spending time at two Islamic militant training camps in Afghanistan, supporting militant Muslim fighters, buying a rifle and a handgun, that he "thought about" taking up arms in Chechnya, and being an acquaintance of people linked to terrorism (most notably, Khalil al-Deek, Dhiren Barot, and Shahid Akram Butt), he denies the remainder of the U.S.'s allegations.

Murat Kurnaz (born March 19, 1982 in Bremen, Germany) was held in extrajudicial detention at the U.S. military base in Kandahar, Afghanistan and in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba for four years. Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen and legal resident of Germany, was in the process of becoming a German citizen when he was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001. His Internment Serial Number was 61.

After being imprisoned for five years he was released and arrived in Germany August 24, 2006.

On May 20, 2008 Kurnaz became the first former Guantanamo detainee to testify before the U.S. Congress, which he did from Germany via videolink.

Murat Kurnaz was among the 60% of prisoners who chose to participate in tribunal hearings. A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee, listing the allegations that supported their detention as an "enemy combatant".

Murat Kurnaz's memo accused him of the following:

On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a Summarized transcripts from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.