Harry's Place

I heartily commend Gita Sahgal for truly sticking her head above the parapet and standing up for human rights in the face of a twisted politicised version of human rights that picks and chooses when to be principled.

I personally had just about had it with Amnesty when they described Gitmo (deaths, 0) as the ‘Gulag of our times’ (Gulag, millions of deaths).

Bastards.

What feeble, missing the point bollocksy “response” that was from AI. Still, they managed to mention “Bush” twice. He has forced their hand you see. If it wasn’t for Bush they wouldn’t have to team up with jihadi and talibani sympathisers. Did you finally see how evil Bush is now?

AI has suggested that several members of the Bush administration be arrested should they ever venture into countries where an application can be made for an arrest for war crimes. To expand on that “Gulag of our times” quote:-

AI has also condemned the U.S.-operated detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In March 2005, Amnesty International-USA’s then-Executive Director William Schulz alleged that the United States had become “a leading purveyor and practitioner” of torture and urged that senior American officials — including President Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet, and high-ranking officers at Guantanamo Bay — face prosecution by other governments for violations of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture. On May 25, 2005, Schulz announced that his organization “calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved in the torture scandal.” “The apparent high-level architects of torture,” he added, “should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riveria because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998.” Schulz’s remarks were echoed in May of 2005 by Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan, who charged that “Guantanamo [Bay] has become the gulag of our times…

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6185

I’m not sure what enquiry AI need to hold, except into their relationship with Islamists linked to groups who advocate violence and sprout Antisemitism.

I guess they’ll just ask Mozzam if there is any truth in this. He will say “No” and that will be the end of it.

BTW, Gita, you have a brilliant name and a great history in human and women’s right. Good Luck!

Gita’s a Gal!

I bet I’m not the first (or last ) to make that feeble joke.

Irene Khan, who made the “Gulag” comparison – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Khan.

Well she would, wouldn’t she?! She has an affinity compatability with most of the inmates.

Facebook users join the group Nick Cohen has started, as I see a number of HPers have joined already…

Moi aussi!

Dear Gita Sahgal,

thank you for posting here. I a sorry to hear what has happened to you, and I salute your brave and principled action. I will be writing to AI to let them know of my support for you, my concern at AI’s promoting of Begg, and my intention not only not to contribute to AI henceforth but also to discourage people I know from doing so, so long as this situation continues.

Good luck, Gita. At least you still have a reputable name.

Good for her, though I fail to see how Amnesty haven’t long projected ‘a twisted politicised version of human rights that picks and chooses when to be principled’ as Marvin so eloquently puts it.

What a brave and articulate response.

The issue is not about Moazzam Begg’s freedom of opinion, nor about his right to propound his views: he already exercises these rights fully as he should. The issue is a fundamental one about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination and fundamentally undermine the universality of human rights. I have raised this issue because of my firm belief in human rights for all.

Well done Gita.

@ Alec Bastards

ON THE CONTRARY. What Amnesty should have done was to ignore her comments in so far as possible e.g. issue a mild rebuke, announce that they are looking into the issues she has raised and then do nothing at all. That’s what civil rights organisations do in Ireland when faced with complaints from Non-PC persons like myself. By suspending Gita Sahga, Amnesty have given her the oxygen of publicity and ensured that the controversy will be on-going.

You Brits have no tact at all!

As I said on another thread, Islamism has poisoned many a good cause that I once supported. I could go further and say that it has even poisoned causes I didn’t support, Islam for example.

So the leading Human Rights organisation around the world, sacks a senior member for utilising her human right of free speech? This is what happens when you lay down with jihadi apologists, Islamist ideologues, al Qaeda Awlaki minions, Shaikh ‘Shoot dead every Jew and Hindu you meet’ Faisal advocates.

Utterly rotten, utterly cowardly, spineless – Amnesty International SHAME SHAME SHAME on you! You lay in a bed with these Talibanis and this is what becomes of you? Shame of you!

I applaud Gita Saghal’s courage and dignity in sticking to her principles whilst maintaining a Voltairish concern for Begg’s. I’ve just about had it with Amnesty and will cancel my subscription and tell them why.

I hope someone gives her a job soon.

Which human rights organisation should I support instead?

Well Done. A brave woman indeed, and unfortunately a lone voice in Amnesty.

Amnesty lost it’s compass many years ago now. Perhaps when you get too big and wealthy corruption gets you easily, – you know, the old money and power takeover of the heart and soul thing.

I never understood some of the reports coming out of Amnesty, especially in a world full of information readily available and checked. With Begg, I was simply stunned that no one did their homework at all.

Thank you Gita for having the courage of your convictions when so many NGOs do not. You are a breath of fresh air in the toxicity that is the human rights industry.

You give the lie to the ‘can do no wrong’, faux humanitarian organisation that has completely lost its way and now makes a mockery of its original intent.

I think it is more complicated than that. Amnesty hasn’t lost its way as an organisation. Its just that there are elements within it, which unchallenged, have been allowed to run riot.

Good post here:-

http://fleshisgrass.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/defend-gita-sahgal-from-her-employers-amnesty-international/

Lucy @ 7 February 2010, 11:08 pm

Yeah – people have been saying, “cancel your subscription” or “threaten to cancel unless Gita is re-instated”. I’m loath to do that unless I know that Amnesty is totally compromised. If 95% of what they do is what they should be doing, and 5% is monkeying around with the likes of Begg, well that’s 95% good work. You get the same about the BBC. A dim-witted, biassed programme gets made and everyone starts howling that the BBC should be carved up and the pieces handed over to Rupert Murdoch.

Amnesty have clearly been infiltrated by fundamentalists. How can an organisation with its history have allowed this. How many have resigned silently and allowed a cabal to gain power. Is there anyone left in AI realise that Islamist fundamentalists just slaughter their enemy. They do not require prisons so no need for AI.

Lucy:

“Amnesty hasn’t lost its way as an organisation. Its just that there are elements within it, which unchallenged, have been allowed to run riot.”

Well the rioters have taken over and suspended one of the most stalwart and reliable keystones.

Given that this is the case, we are better off knowing about it. We are always best served by knowing how much trouble we are in.

HRW and now Amnesty International are worse than irrelevant.

Time to donate to Doctors without Borders.

I must confess that, cynicism and all, I am shocked. For many years I have supported AI both as a member and with my humble donations precisely because I believed that, uniquely in the world, it is an organisation committed to human rights in their most universal sense, rather than (as many do) to using human rights selectively as a battering ram for diverse ends.

This doesn’t mean that AI never made mistakes, of course it did. (And at least has had the honesty to admit to one.) But it means that its intentions were (well, at least to my knowledge) pure.

And now comes all this business – and it really has two parts, both ugly. Firstly, the issue at hand. Gita Sahgal is spot on in her criticism. There is a world of difference between campaigning against detention without trial as in Guantanamo, inclusive of the past detention of Muazzam Begg, and making the latter a valued partner in a publicity campaign, effectively lending the Amnesty International good name in clearing the reputation of a very dodgy character, with serious questions to answer on his support for the Taliban. Gita Saghal was absolutely right to raise this concern and it appears that she did it by the book: first, and repeatedly, internally and, when this has had no effect, blowing the whistle.

And then is the second issue, the AI reaction to all this, a reaction of a kind one would have expected from a multinational business or a fairly unpleasant government, not from a campaigning organisation. First, they “suspended” – effectively, sacked the whistleblower. Even as a tactic it is bizarre: is AI, in its practices, trying to encourage, by example and deed, a clamp-down on whistleblowers? (And this beside the very morality of this particular case.) But it becomes worse. Read the statement on the AI website: it is a litany of spin, which could have been written by Charlie Whelan or Andrew Coulson on a bad day. (Alastair Campbell would have been more classy.) They never address Gita’s points honestly, they don’t engage with her complaints… Instead, they create and “demolish” straw arguments.

It seems that the very people who should be the most sensitive to sounds of injustice and iniquity – and we desperately need people like this – have developed a tin ear to their own failings.

There will be those who rejoice. I, for one, am sad.

I told you so.

There is a world of difference between campaigning against detention without trial as in Guantanamo, inclusive of the past detention of Muazzam Begg, and making the latter a valued partner in a publicity campaign,

Quite. You would have thought that the argument that human rights don’t just apply to people of whom you approve would be a simple one to grasp. Amnesty now seem to believe that if someone’s rights are violated, you have to approve of them.

Muffin. You cannot have your cake and eat it. Why are you sad? The woman has exposed what is wrong with AI. AI have lost their credibility by allowing themselves to be tainted by onerous people with an agenda incompatible with the origins of AI. You should be happy.

I think, underneath it all, Amnesty UK feels, but is loath to say out loud that they consider it infinitely more important to oppose the United States than to oppose the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

>> Yeah – people have been saying, “cancel your subscription” or “threaten to cancel unless Gita is re-instated”. I’m loath to do that unless I know that Amnesty is totally compromised. If 95% of what they do is what they should be doing, and 5% is monkeying around with the likes of Begg, well that’s 95% good work. You get the same about the BBC. A dim-witted, biassed programme gets made and everyone starts howling that the BBC should be carved up and the pieces handed over to Rupert Murdoch.

Remember when Father Ted said only 1 in 20 Catholic priests were child molesters?

Alec. The fact that AI associatd themselves with such people suggests they were compromised willingly or unwillingly. 1 in 20 buggerers is enough!

Well done Gita.

I used to donate regularly to Amnesty International; now I give to the Medical Foundation, which is truly apolitical, or the Barnabas Fund, which campaigns for persecuted Christians, not least in the Muslim world.

AI has jumped on the anti-Israel/anti-US bandwaggon, like a typical lefty, and is not worthy of our support.

Nick Cohen put it well “I accept that this may seem an odd thing to wish for, but what the world needs now is an uncompromisingly militant feminist movement.” http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/2041/full It is clear who its leader should be.

“I think it is more complicated than that. Amnesty hasn’t lost its way as an organisation. Its just that there are elements within it, which unchallenged, have been allowed to run riot.”

Lets face it, it isnt just Amnesty International that has the problem, democracies and democratic institutions across the board are being overun with the worst sorts of Leftwingers and their new favorite victim group to pummel the West with.

bookworm, when it comes to fashion and spending money women are uncompromising. Besides that they will accept whatever comes round including the burka. The womens liberation of the sixties was a man thing to make profit. The women wore the minis and hot pants as required by men. They are a delicate species that are attracted to the kitchen sink.

They are a delicate species that are attracted to the kitchen sink.

Given a choice between spending time with a man with opinions such as that, I am sure most women would choose the sink!

Bravo Gita – and what a shame!

Punishment for not holding the correct accepted Leftwing opinion. This isnt the first time that this has happened, and it wont be the last.

@jimma glesfga – ffs …

I’ve also been a member of Amnesty for a long time and find the latest developments very disturbing – not sure yet whether to cancel my membership – like others I think AI *does* still do good work – but I’m thinking about it.

If HRW and AI are both infested with Islamists, how can they properly defend human rights? This is disturbing stuff.

Given the choice between a redoubtable proponent of universal human rights and a theocrat, AI has chosen the latter. You think you lose your ability to be shocked, but every now and again something like this happens to remind you that things can get, and are getting, worse.

No one who supports universal human rights should fund an organisation that would make that choice.

Contemptible yet inadvertently hilarious response from Yvonne Ridley over on The Spittoon, here:

http://www.spittoon.org/archives/4914/comment-page-1#comment-15825

Seeing Amnesty at the moment is akin to watching a man running down the street stabbing himself.

I don’t think they realise quite how big a mistake this could be. Organisations such as AI will always face criticism, but it has no potential for future credibility if Gita Saghal is not reinstated.

Drop the knife – please…….

Sorry to burst your bubble, Abu Faris, but Yvonne has made identical comments on the other sites linked from here. So don’t run away with the idea she has singled you out for special, personal treatment.

The ancestor of Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties, was set up by liberals (eg E M Forster) and then was taken over by Communists, as organisations were those days, which hurt its reputation for impartiality. However, it survived that and went on to fight another day. I wouldn’t write Amnesty off just yet.

Yvonne Ridley has emailed her response to at least 4 sites now, a concerted campaign by the islamists to defend Begg, feminist and human rights activist par excellence, seems to be on.

Gita has a history of principled activism – in Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism – to die for. She is a truly wonderful person.

She played a role in shifting the left to support Rushdie – see her article in the Socialist Society magazine of the time (next to one by yours truly).

I wonder if people like Hilary Wainwright will support her now.

One of my best memories is of Gita coming across a meeting to shake my hands and thank me for the support I gave them.

I have never forgotten that Gita.

Sorry to burst your bubble, Abu Faris, but Yvonne has made identical comments on the other sites linked from here. So don’t run away with the idea she has singled you out for special, personal treatment.

I was making no such suggestion. Sorry to burst your bubble, KB. I was simply drawing attention to a comment by Ridley on The Spittoon site.

Incidentally, it is not my site.

Thanks.

I am waiting for the feminist sites and organisations to pick up this story; would be interesting to see their reaction.

It is necessary to castigate AI for this travesty,( and even to cancel membership, KB) but over the top denunciations of a worthwhile human rights organisation as a jihadi outfit or islamist infiltrated body are counter productive. Will the usual suspects please desist?

I was joking, Abu Faris, and didn’t mean to offend you. I’m finding it very entertaining to see a cut and paste response from Yvonne Ridley on every site dealing with this affair.

Thanks, KB Player. A bit sensitive at the moment – as you might realise.

I,m waiting for Socialist Unity and Pickledpolitics to comment. They seem more concerned with a dead French Trot and Pakistani fashion week.

It’s absolutely contemptible what they have done. By coincidence, Amnesty have Begg doing his roadshow in Dublin tonight; I might try to pluck up the bravery to go along on my own and speak my brains.

P.

She aught to write a book about it, I’d actually be interested in reading how a once respected organisation threw it away and if perhaps some difference of internal structure might have kept it honest.
And yeah it’s sad cos there’s no other comparable group doing the job AI was supposed to be doing afaict.

So the takeaway from this is that a left-liberal organisation has abandoned its commitment to universal human rights to instead provide a platform for misogynist, homophobic, murderous jihadists, who although the may possibly not be supportive of the finer, er, shibboleths of sexual politics are at least anti-semitic and anti-American, as any good left-liberal should be these days? And that when this is pointed out, a left-liberal organisation with notional commitment to universal human rights reacts by suspending a bme woman in order to curry favour with the aforementioned misogynist etc etc?

Yet again, I have to ask people to pop over to my house. I’m worried that the bears are about to defecate in my bushes and there seems to be a man in a dress with a funny hat claiming to be the pope.

and there seems to be a man in a dress with a funny hat claiming to be the pope.

Verka Serduchka is claiming to be the Pope??!!

Amnesty has created the impression that Begg is not only a victim of human rights violations but a defender of human rights

Unfortunately investing victims with instant sanctity so that they becomes experts and pundits on the thing they suffered is not new. How many times do we see parents of murdered children being lionised as experts on crime? Just because you were the victim of a crime doesn’t mean we have to take seriously your views on how such crimes should be policed and detected.

A contradiction, even a very small one, will eventually produce an insurmountable hurdle of logic. Amnesty International have reached their ‘hurdle moment’. However, by suspending Gita Sahgal they are beginning a process which will rapidly fall out of their control – indeed to judge by reactions all around the blogosphere, – this has already happened. How Amnesty International deals with this will be interesting; I have noted over the years how totalitarian is the behaviour of ‘New Left’ and ‘Alternative’ entities when under pressure. However, one certain looser is bound to be Mr Begg, whose ‘Cage Prisoners’ will come in for much more widespread scrutiny than ever before. Thanks to Harry’s Place journalists and researcher’s have ‘chapter and verse’ on Cage Prisoner’s, Mr Begg and his many contacts with extremism.

Result.

OT. The B.B.C. are trailing a new Peter Taylor series on jihadi’s in the U.K. including interviews with released convicted sympathisers who are “unrepentant” for the actions which took them to prison. First instalment broadcasts tonight.

I am waiting for the feminist sites and organisations to pick up this story; would be interesting to see their reaction.

There is a post over at The F Word. At least one person has already come out in support of Caged Prisoners in the comments, however.

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/02/important_quest#comments

I’ll watch the Peter Taylor thing but doesn’t he usually try balance things off with anti-western conspiracy theories so it all ends up looking like a baffling hall of mirrors with each side as bad as the other?
Terrorism’s bad but Bushitler and Bliar made them do it?

Here is a nice photo of Sahgal, with her message on a board:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwgl/3707433816/

Which is:

“Fundamentalisms: political movements of the extreme right which, in a context of globalisation, manipulate religion, culture and ethnicity in order to achieve their political aims.”

Well done Gita Sahgal

@ KB Player
The ancestor of Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties, was set up by liberals (eg E M Forster) and then was taken over by Communists, as organisations were those days, which hurt its reputation for impartiality. However, it survived that and went on to fight another day. I wouldn’t write Amnesty off just yet.

The difference between being taken over by Communists vis a vis Islamists is that between Evil and Decadence. We consider people evil because we think they are responsible for their actions and could change if they wanted to. The decadent ones are too morally corrupt to rise to the level of evil and are -literally- beyond redemption. I suspect that Amnesty is a decadent organisation.

“I am waiting for the feminist sites and organisations to pick up this story; would be interesting to see their reaction.”

And stroppyblog of course which is linked to in the post above.

Amnesty will get dreadful PR from this, and they have been very silly in promoting Begg as “a human rights defender”. He has had his rights violated in Gitmo, but that is no reason to give his views a platform.

I know this won’t be a popular point, but if I gave a press interview, criticising the policy of the organisation that I work for, I would expect to face disciplinary action….that is not to say that I don’t agree with Gita’s point of view.

I thought that Begg was merely doing a talk here in Dublin, but he’s also getting to meet both the

only just found out that not only are Amnesty hosting a platform for Begg, but they have arranged Government bodies:

http://www.amnesty.ie/live/irish/article.asp?id=39421&page=00

“Mr Begg, accompanied by lawyers from Reprieve and the US Center for Constitutional Rights, will also meet with representatives of the Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs, and on Tuesday with the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs. ”

So it’s easy to see what he gets out of his links with Amnesty. What they get out of it is another matter.

P.

Ana, exactly, just trying to get you away from it.

Kilbarry1, that’s meaningless and unilluminating.

Jimmy – What? Your comment doesn’t make any sense. What are you trying to get me away from?

Its clear from the SOAS common room that Gita is in fact a Zionist agent, paid by organ stealing jews to try and stop Amnesty’s brave and fierce criticism of the Zionist Entity on occupied palestinian land.

Metaculture, the liberal Left has been coddling the far Left, and have made these days possible. In effect, all Leftists contributed to the current establishment of far Leftists within the Establishment and system. Apologizing for them and allying with them, against your enemies in the West.

There is nothing new here.

The various studies departments have since inception been hate mongers of the West, America, dead white males, Christians and Christianity.

Women’s Studies, African American Studies, Gay & Lesbian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Latino & Chicano Studies departments are filled with hatemongers, racists, sexists, groupist bigots, who are determined to destroy Western Civilization, White Euros, Christianity, Males. They are commited to those groups disempowerment and the rise of the oppressed.

You decent Leftists bought the rhetoric about utopian visions of equality and the vicitimization groups played along, for funding and agenda advancement, wealth redistribution, special priveleges, elevating other cultures and their interests over the dead white males. You were happy to advance your agenda, and scream McCarthyist and hate filled racist sexist bigot at anyone on the right who pointed this out. The coalition to power was what mattered.

Blaming others (the Far Left) for the state of affairs on the Left (and now the West generally) really misses the point.

Josh Scholar
I was partly thinking of Billy Sunday’s comment: “There are some men so low, it would take a miracle of God to raise them to the level of total depravity”. True he wasn’t a great theologian but I think he had something there.

Hewlett Johnson the late Red Dean of Canterbury was decadent; Naom Chomsky is evil. There is a valid distinction.

Ana try the sink. You would not happen to be a leftie type Ana!

Jimmy – I am still confused. This was your original comment -

when it comes to fashion and spending money women are uncompromising. Besides that they will accept whatever comes round including the burka. The womens liberation of the sixties was a man thing to make profit. The women wore the minis and hot pants as required by men. They are a delicate species that are attracted to the kitchen sink.

Either you stand by that statement, in which case I stand by my original assessment of your character, or you meant this as a joke that fell flat in which case please say so.

As to my politics I would describe myself as slightly left of centre.
I am not sure how my politics are relevent here. I think if you had suggested to Margaret Thatcher that she was a ‘delicate species attracted to the sink’ you would have recieved short shrift from her as well.

That’s true about Margaret Thatcher. I believe that some of her male colleagues referred to her as Attila the Hen. That was a tribute to her masculine qualities of course. During William Whitelaw’s period as Deputy Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher relied heavily on him, once announcing that “every Prime Minister needs a Willie”. Apparently her husband had to explain why her audience were in hysterics.

Women have no sense of humour!

Killbarry1

Some women don’t have a sense of humour. That doesn’t mean that all women are humourless. To use an example you will like – some Catholic clergy are paedophiles, but that doesn’t mean that all Catholic clergy are paedophiles.

True and some Jews are paedophiles but not all Jews are paedophiles. Some Jews – but not all – supported Lenin and Stalin and some – but by no means all- were prominent in the American Mafia.

And I don’t intend the above as a joke. All three statements are literally true.

Yes, I am sure they are all true. So you wouldn’t say ‘All Jews are Communists’ or ‘All the Mafiosos are Jewish’. So, less of the ‘all women are…’ crap.

I remember 25 years ago being at the post office of my small city getting an air mail stamp for my AI letter. Also there was a bank president and a college professor to get the same air mail stamp for the same reason. We were all miles apart politically but on the same page for humanity. I quit AI a few years ago because of the politicalization of the organization. Just think what they could have accomplished if they had stay true. It is so sad

Ana, Maggie allowed Dennis on occasion to do the dishes. She was a flexible British woman. Not a woman that would tolerate the burka. Rejoice,Rejoice! Slightly left of centre Ana. Whit the F is that? I used to play right half for the school football team. Is that near left of centre!

Jimmy – What have you been drinking the night?

You haven’t actually answered my question, but I am bored now so I’m not going to ask it again!

@Ana – I think he *did* mean the sink (ie trying to you away from that) but it was certainly an unconvincing retreat(?) from the original comment. I’d describe myself as slightly left of centre too – seems clear enough to me!

Amnesty,
If you still have an iota of decency and need credibility to grow, re-instate this true champion of human rights.

AI in its anti-Israel anti-western lefty biases has lost me a long time ago.
The purity of its ideals and good beginnings have been politicized and abused and have been debased. Gita is suffering from the good old-fashioned politics that has taken over and AI has lost its way even further.

I agree with others that those defended by AI need not have their perverse and damaging views defended. It is their treatment that requires review and exposure not their views or beliefs. This should have been a rights defending group and not a platform for views not consistent with civilized society.

AI has long ago, lost another supporter. This makes it even more difficult to support again.