[Reader-list] Amnesty International in bed with Jihadi types (just like many on the left)

[Harsh Kapoor]

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


>From The Sunday Times
February 7, 2010

Amnesty International is ‘damaged’ by Taliban link
An official at the human rights charity deplores its work with a ‘jihadist’
Amnesty International demonstrators wearing boiler suits

by Richard Kerbaj

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.”