Amnestyn johtojäsen hyllytettiin koska arvosteli järjestöään

[M.]

A senior Amnesty International official has been suspended after attacking the human rights charity for allying itself with 'Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban'.

Miss Sahgal immediately released an angry statement online, claiming: 'Amnesty International has sanitised the history and politics of ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, and completely failed to recognise the nature of his organisation Cageprisoners.

She said there was a history of warnings within Amnesty about Mr Begg that had all been ignored.
'Amnesty has created the impression that Begg is not only a victim of human rights violations but a defender of human rights. Many of my highly respected colleagues, each well-regarded in their area of expertise has said so. Each has been set aside,' she said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249649/Amnesty-turmoil-suspending-chief-attacked-groups-links-Muslim-jihadists.html#ixzz0f7KOEXnO

[Rauli]

Vähän aikaa sitten Suomen Amnestyn toiminnanjohtaja Frank Johansson kehui FST:n lähetyksessä suureen ääneen Astrid Thorsia. Minä tuskin olin ainoa, joka kummasteli, onko maailmasta loppuneet poliittiset vangit, kun Suomen Amnesty on näin tiivisti sekaantunut elintasopakolaisten maahantuontiin? Näyttää kuitenkin siltä, että Amnesty Internationalilla on maailmanlaajuisesti palikat sekaisin. Amnestyn toilailua Isosta-Britanniasta:

Amnesty International is 'damaged' by Taliban link

An official at the human rights charity deplores its work with a 'jihadist'[/b]

A SENIOR official at Amnesty International has accused the charity of putting the human rights of Al-Qaeda terror suspects above those of their victims.

Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty's international secretariat, believes that collaborating with Moazzam Begg, a former British inmate at Guantanamo Bay, "fundamentally damages" the organisation's reputation.

In an email sent to Amnesty's top bosses, she suggests the charity has mistakenly allied itself with Begg and his "jihadi" group, Cageprisoners, out of fear of being branded racist and Islamophobic.

Sahgal describes Begg as "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban". He has championed the rights of jailed Al-Qaeda members and hate preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged spiritual mentor of the Christmas Day Detroit plane bomber.

Amnesty's work with Cageprisoners took it to Downing Street last month to demand the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Begg has also embarked on a European tour, hosted by Amnesty, urging countries to offer safe haven to Guantanamo detainees. This is despite concerns about former inmates returning to terrorism.

Sahgal, who has researched religious fundamentalism for 20 years, has decided to go public because she feels Amnesty has ignored her warnings for the past two years about the involvement of Begg in the charity's Counter Terror With Justice campaign.

"I believe the campaign fundamentally damages Amnesty International's integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights," Sahgal wrote in an email to the organisation's leaders on January 30. "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment."

Amnesty is the world's biggest human rights organisation with 2.2m members and a galaxy of celebrity supporters, including Bono, John Cleese, Yoko Ono, Al Pacino and Sinead O'Connor. Its decision to work with Begg poses liberal backers with a moral dilemma and raises questions about the direction in which Amnesty has travelled since it was set up in 1961 to support "prisoners of conscience".

"As a former Guantanamo detainee it was legitimate to hear his experiences, but as a supporter of the Taliban it was absolutely wrong to legitimise him as a partner," Sahgal told The Sunday Times.

Begg, 42, from Birmingham, was held at Guantanamo for three years until 2005 under suspicion of links to Al-Qaeda, which he denies. Prior to his arrest, Begg lived with his family in Kabul and praised the Taliban in his memoirs as "better than anything Afghanistan has had in 20 years". After his release Begg became the figurehead for Cageprisoners, which describes itself as "a human rights organisation that exists solely to raise awareness of the plight of prisoners ... held as part of the War On Terror".

Among the Muslim inmates it highlights are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Abu Hamza, the hook-handed cleric facing extradition from Britain to America on terror charges, and Abu Qatada, a preacher described as Osama Bin Laden's "European ambassador".

Sahgal, 53, is not the only critic of Begg at Amnesty. In 2008 a board member of its US arm opposed Begg's appearance, via videolink, at its AGM, but was overruled.

When Begg appeared at Downing Street last month as part of a group delivering a letter to Gordon Brown calling for the release of the last British resident held at Guantanamo, he was accompanied by Kate Allen, head of Amnesty's UK section since 2000. Allen is a leftwinger who was the girlfriend of Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, for almost 20 years.

This weekend Amnesty said it had launched an internal inquiry after Sahgal raised her concerns with bosses, including Allen and Claudio Cordone, the interim secretary-general.

Anne Fitzgerald, policy director of Amnesty's international secretariat, said the charity had formed a relationship with Begg because he was a "compelling speaker" on detention. She said he had been paid expenses for his attendance at its events.

Asked if she thought Begg was a human rights advocate, Fitzgerald said: "It's something you'd have to speak to him about. I don't have the information to answer that."

Yesterday Begg dismissed Sahgal's claims as "ridiculous". He defended his support for the Taliban and the decision by Cageprisoners to highlight the plight of detainees linked to Al-Qaeda: "We need to be engaging with those people who we find most unpalatable. I don't consider anybody a terrorist until they have been charged and convicted of terrorism."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7017810.ece

Jaa-a, muistan suhtautuneeni nuorempana Amnestyyn erittäin myötämielisesti ja jopa harkinneeni liittymistä mukaan. Ei ole sitä pelkoa enää näinä päivinä.

[M.]

Salman Rushdie kommentoi Amnestyn päätöstä:

"Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong. It has greatly compounded its error by suspending the redoubtable Gita Sahgal for the crime of going public with her concerns. Gita Sahgal is a woman of immense integrity and distinction and I am personally grateful to her for the courageous stands she made at the time of the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses, as a leading member of the groups Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism. It is people like Gita Sahgal who are the true voices of the human rights movement; Amnesty and Begg have revealed, by their statements and actions, that they deserve our contempt."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7034773.ece

[Maastamuuttaja]

Saisikohan Frank Johanssonilta lausunnon tästä? Amnestyhän kuuluu avoimuuden esitaistelijoihin, joten on lupa odottaa, frankly speaking, Frankin näkemystä. Niin ja miksei myös saman tien Rushdien fatwasta. Edellyttäen tietysti, että aikaa jää rasismintuomintaharrastuksilta.

[Aapo]

Salman Rushdie kommentoi Amnestyn päätöstä:

Christopher Hitchens on samoilla linjoilla.

http://www.slate.com/id/2244802/

[Epäjärjestysmies]

Kysymyksessähän on erittäin jyrkästi vasemmalla oleva poliittinen järjestö (jos asia on jäänyt jollekin epäselväksi). Ei mitään uutta.

[gloaming]

Amnesty, joka on kadottanut juurensa mielipiteensä vuoksi vainottujen puolustajana ja degeneroitunut utopistisprogressiiviseksi (antikolonialismi/kehitysmaa-asianajaja, monikultturismi, taistelufeminismi, antirasismi, uusvasemmistolaisuus ym.) syyllistäväksi lobbyksi vajoaa yhä syvemmälle ja syvemmälle ko. aatteiden mustaan aukkoon. Sääli.