[Reader-list] Gita Sahgal quits Amnesty International

[Harsh Kapoor]

Source URL: http://www.human-rights-for-all.org/spip.php?article54

Statement by Gita Sahgal on Leaving Amnesty International


Press Release

11 April 2010

Below follow two statements on the departure of the Head of the Gender
Unit from Amnesty International following her making public her
concerns regarding Amnesty International’s relationship with Moazzam
Begg a former Guantanamo detainee, now running an organisation called
Cageprisoners which has championed the views of Anwar al Awlaki. Begg
has also described the convicted terrorist recruiter Ali Al Timimi as
“one of the most reasonable and middle of the path scholars that I
have come across”. Begg once owned a bookshop in Birmingham UK which
sold a books by al Qaida mentor Abdullah Azzam. The bookshop also
published ’The Army of Madinah’ by Dhiren Barot, a close associate of
Khalid Mohammed Sheikh, perhaps Britain’s most important connection to
the al Queda leadership, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder
and is serving a life sentence in prison, without parole.

o o o

On April 9th 2010, Amnesty International issued the following statement:

Due to irreconcilable differences of view over policy between Gita
Sahgal and Amnesty International regarding Amnesty International’s
relationship with Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners, it has been agreed
that Gita will leave Amnesty International on 9 April 2010. Gita has
most recently held the position of Interim Head of the Gender,
Sexuality and Identity Unit, and was in a period of consultation over
possible redeployment following a redundancy process. Accordingly,
Gita will leave receiving a payment based on Amnesty International’s
redundancy policy.

o o o

STATEMENT BY GITA SAHGAL ON LEAVING AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

On Friday 9th April, 2010 Amnesty International announced my departure
from the organization. The agreed statement said, ‘due to
irreconcilable differences of view over policy between Gita Sahgal and
Amnesty International regarding Amnesty International’s relationship
with Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners, it has been agreed that Gita will
leave Amnesty International.’

I was hired as the Head of the Gender Unit as the organization began
to develop its Stop Violence Against Women campaign. I leave with
great sadness as the campaign is closed. Thousands of activists of
Amnesty International enthusiastically joined the campaign. Many hoped
that it would induce respect for women’s human rights in every aspect
of the work. Today, there is little ground for optimism.

The senior leadership of Amnesty International chose to answer the
questions I posed about Amnesty International’s relationship with
Moazzam Begg by affirming their links with him. Now they have also
confirmed that the views of Begg, his associates and his organisation
Cageprisoners, do not trouble them. They have stated that the idea of
jihad in self defence is not antithetical to human rights; and have
explained that they meant only the specific form of violent jihad that
Moazzam Begg and others in Cageprisoners assert is the individual
obligation of every Muslim.

I thank the senior leadership for these admissions and for their
further clarification that concerns around the legitimization of Begg
were of very long standing and that there was strong opposition from
Head of the Asia programme to a partnership with him. When
disagreements are profound, it is best that disputes over matters of
fact, are reduced.

Unfortunately, their stance has laid waste every achievement on
women’s equality and made a mockery of the universality of rights. In
fact, the leadership has effectively rejected a belief in universality
as an essential basis for partnership.

I extend my sympathies to all who have fought long and hard within
Amnesty International to match the movement’s principles with its
actions. I know many of you have been bewildered by this dispute and
others deeply shamed by what is being done in your name. You may have
been told that that debate is not possible in the middle of a crisis.
I agree that there is indeed a crisis and that the hardest questions
are being posed by Amnesty International’s close human rights allies,
particularly in areas where jihad supported by Begg’s associates, is
being waged.

I am now free to offer my help as an external expert with an intimate
knowledge of Amnesty International’s processes and policies. I can
explain in public debates, both with the leadership and inside the
Sections, that adherence to violent jihad even if it indeed rejects
the killing of some civilians, is an integral part of a political
philosophy that promotes the destruction of human rights generally and
contravenes Amnesty International’s specific policies relating to
systematic violence and discrimination, particularly against women and
minorities.

During these last two months, human rights gains have been made to
defend the torture standard and to shame governments who have been
complicit in torture through their ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policies.
But the spectre that arises through the continued promotion of Moazzam
Begg as the perfect victim, is that Amnesty International is operating
its own policies of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’

So I invite you to join me as I continue to campaign for public
accountability at this moment, which comes but rarely in history, when
a great organisation must ask: if it lies to itself, can it demand the
truth of others?

Gita Sahgal

Former Interim Head of the Gender, Sexuality and Identity Unit,
Amnesty International
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