Not surprising at all, given the Leftist/Jihadist alliance that manifests itself in so many areas. "Amnesty International is 'damaged' by Taliban link," by Richard Kerbaj for The Sunday Times, February 7 (thanks to Sr. Soph):
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."...
There is hardly an NGO in what used to be, decades ago, a legitimate and even worthy enterprise, and has now become, because now heavily staffed with such apologists, mostly an exercise in diseased sympathy for those conducting Jihad, through violence or other means, and indifference, or -- as in the case of always-to-be-attacked-with-impunity Israel -- even hostility, toward the victims of such Jihad.
There is, for example, Human Rights Watch, with Sarah Leah Whitson, who went off to Saudi Arabia to raise funds by pointing out just how effective in its anti-Israel "reports" her organization had been; and there is Joe Stork, and Nadia Barhoum, the one non-Muslim but a toiler in the anti-Israel vineyard for three decades before that made him just the man to hire for the Middle East part of Human Rights Watch, and the second a "Palestinian" activist whose campus career made her, too, just the perfect candidate to be hired and assigned to monitoring that arch-villain of states, the Mighty Empire of Israel. And then, to pile Ossa upon Pelion, or perhaps to put the goddam cherry on top, there was the hiring of that "expert" on Israel's "war crimes," a certain Mark Gerlasco. Remember him? He's the one who, it turned out, was an obsessive collector -- with thousands of pieces, as he proudly blogged at a site for similar sinister collectors -- of Nazi war memorabilia. And when he was found out, he made it sound as if collecting thousands of pieces of Nazi war memorabilia, and being particularly ecstatic over coming into possession of some choice bit of S.S. material, was nothing more unusual than, and just as innocuous as, collecting Lincoln cents, or stamps from the British West Indies. That's Human Rights Watch.
Then there's Amnesty International. It's head is one Irene Khan --from Bangladesh. She's a stout protector of, apologist for, Islam, and you can tell that by seeing what she chooses to have her organization worry about, and report on, and protest, and what that organization so carefully dismisses, or ignores, or minimizes.
Here's a little of what I wrote about her some time ago at a different site:
"It will be interesting to see if Irene Khan, herself of Muslim Bangladeshi descent and the Secretary-General of that now heavily politicized organization, Amnesty International, (which is normally so exercised about the “war crimes” of the United States and, bien sur, Israel), will forthrightly take the lead in denouncing, again and again, the massacres of Christians and especially of Hindus in Bangladesh. She was recently there, and what seemed to exercise her the most was the declaration that Ahmadiyyas were not legitimate Muslims.
One would like Irene Khan to discuss what it was about the redefinition of the status of Ahmadiyyas was so worrying. Why would it matter, if they are called "Muslims" or not, if Islam itself is the religion of peace and tolerance we hear that it is? Why would being declared "not-Muslim" affect the wellbeing, in Bangladesh, of Ahmadiyyas? Irene Khan knows the answer. But she persists in refusing to join Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, and others. Instead she pretends that the problem is not Islam, not the words of Qur'an and hadith -- no, no, that will never do -- but the "cultural" or "civilizational" attitudes that, for some reason, are remarkably coincident in time and space with Islam.
Meanwhile, let's keep a close watch on Bangladesh. Make no mistake: it is an unpleasant place, made unpleasant by the aggressions of Islam. No Tales of a Bengal Lancer, and no verses by the once-celebrated Rabindranath Tagore (not a Muslim, so disliked very much in Bangladesh), are part of present-day Bangladesh, or to make it more pleasingly exotic, Bangla Desh. The massacres of millions of insufficiently loyal, or insufficiently Muslim, Bangladeshis by the army of West Pakistan seems to have left little impression. One might, under the circumstances, have thought that that little display of murderous aggression, with the stated aim of restoring the right rule of Allah to a wavering Bengali population, might have had long-term effects of fervor. This does not seem to have happened -- always excepting the handful of skeptical freedom-lovers who, through the Internet, are learning the disastrous effects Islam has had on the intellect, and on human potential, everywhere it has imposed its will."
There is hardly an NGO that has not been tainted, terribly so, over the past ten or twenty years. They either must be cleaned out, and that means a change of personnel so that they can regain whatever legitimacy they once had, or other organizations must be started, with similar titles, but with legitimate operations and personnel who will not be shills for Islam and for Muslims.
Meanwhile, persuade everyone you know to withhold financial support, and come to think of it, any other kind of support, from such organizations, until they are cleaned up.
Thanks for that summary, Hugh. It confirms many of my suspicions. I used to be a supporter of Amnesty International many years ago. I remember driving along in upstate NY a number of years ago, and tuning in to a CBC radio broadcast, and the Canadian head of AI explained how AI admittedly criticized the US more harshly than other countries, because, he said "more is expected of the US." So right there, he admitted that they didn't judge human life objectively; the victims of oppression in some countries weren't as worthwhile as the victims of oppression in other countries. I got into a big argument a couple years ago when AI called me, wanting me to renew my membership. The AI caller opened with something about Guantanimo, and I stopped him and asked him if that was the most pressing human rights violation in the world. He eventually said "no", and then went into a similar spiel about how more is expected of the US. I explained to him that a nuanced Westerner might understand that argument, but the vast majority of the world isn't going to, and when they see AI focus on the US, they will believe that the US is objectively the worst human rights violator in the world---and the net result is that AI is NOT helping human rights, but is spreading misinformation. He agreed I had a point, and I told him they weren't getting another cent from me until their focus was commensurate with the countries who are objectively committing the most and worst human rights violations.
Irene Khan, moral arbiter, in her own words:
www.smh.com.au/news/world/howard-is-just-like-mugabe/2007/05/24/1179601522501.html
Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan said the fear generated by leaders such as Mr Howard "thrives on myopic and cowardly leadership".
Ms Khan lumped Mr Howard in with Mr Mugabe, US President George W Bush and Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in a paragraph about leaders who used fear to suit their political agenda.
I resigned' from Amnesty citing the disgraceful waste of millions of dollars on that foolish young man David Hicks (who arrived back home thanks to AMnesty weighing two stone more than he did when he left -- courtesy of Gitmo's canteen.
Their findings on the Gaza incursion by Israel after years of provocation and murder, were also a total disgrace. I never heard back from them. I think I"ll resend the letter to their London head office.
Wow an organisation saturated with Muslims is now only concerned with the rights of Muslims? I never saw that coming...
Supplementary:
"Amnesty in cageprisoners row: dynamite!"
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2010/02/06/amnesty-in-cageprisoners-row-dynamite/
"Amnesty International, Moazzam Begg and the bravery of Gita Sahgal" (by Martin Bright).
http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5757557/amnesty-international-moazzam-begg-and-the-bravery-of-gita-sahgal.thtml
I too am a former AI member, for much the same reasons as stated by Boston tea party and Jewcat. I guess if you want human rights, you have to hang out at JW.
It is a crying shame that the feminist movement and it's cohorts at AI routinely ignore womens rights issues in Muslim countries. How did this paradox come to be?
Hi - just wanted to let you all know that Amnesty has now posted on official response to this article, which you can find here: http://bit.ly/bW3ljy
It is a compliment in a way that Amnesty is monitoring JW and considers it necessary to post a direct response. Who knows maybe the MSM will quote JW one day but I will not hold my breath.
As Hugh pointed out,
"There is hardly an NGO that has not been tainted, terribly so, over the past ten or twenty years. They either must be cleaned out, and that means a change of personnel so that they can regain whatever legitimacy they once had, or other organizations must be started, with similar titles, but with legitimate operations and personnel who will not be shills for Islam and for Muslims"
Amnesty was started to defend the legitimate expression of dissent as symbolized by a candle surrounded by barbed wire. When founded, it refused associate itself with any organisation that used or advocated violence. This policy continued for many years and once (in the 1970's?) it even protested to the BBC that it had been mentioned in a fictional drama in a manner that might imply it supported violence.
However it was taken over by the left as soon as it had established an international reputation and they expanded it as the international champion of anything and everyone they approved of. As a Conservative MP who left it at the time of the takeover said, and I am working from memory,
"It began as small groups getting together to organise direct support for people such as Trade Unionists imprisoned for something as innocent as writing a letter. We wrote to them, their governments and the British government so they knew they were not forgotten, but now..........I forget the rest but we can see what it has become.
Well look at their championing of poor oppressed Moazzam Begg. An Ethiopian (who knows for certain?) who entered the UK from the US and lied to get a British Passport. Admits to attending a terrorist training camp - sorry freedom fighter training camp - picked up in Pakistan trying to enter the US on a false passport in company with a US citizen. The US citizen was subsequently tried, convicted and serving time for terror related offenses. Strange they never mention this. I guess if anyone does they will claim he and Begg just happened to have consecutive ticket numbers.
Not sure where old Moazzam Begg the Ethiopian/British/dud US passport holding citizen is at the moment. I think the last I heard he was living at our expense while some suitably expensive lawyers (provided by who, Amnesty?) sued the British Govermnent for allowing an Ethiopian/British/dud US passport holding citizen who attended a training camp to be roughed up. As it happens I do not think there is any chance he will go jihading again. With the help of AI and the like he is much more use to the jihad here than he would be blowing up a few kuffurs.
Anyway, it is some way from house groups writing letters to support people jailed for writing letter so AI has moved with the times. Consequently it needs to change its logo to one more appropriate to its new role. They should get rid of the candle and have an AK47 and koran surrounded by barbed wire.
Here is Amnesty International response by sacking Gita Sahgal. Typical response by a organization that supports terrorism and Islamic supremacy. http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Outrage+as+Amnesty+sacks+campaigner+Gita+Sahgal&artid=maITnrydmdE=&SectionID=oHSKVfNWYm0=&MainSectionID=oHSKVfNWYm0=&SectionName=VfE7I/Vl8os=&SEO=
AI is a pathetic joke run by self-hating, left-wing shills for islam and muslims. Their primary function is to denigrate the United States and Israel and to defend jihadists/terrorists. I doubt if the lunatics running that asylum have a clue how irrelevant they have become or how obvious their biases are.
They do not give a damn about the human rights of little girls executed in islamic hellholes for the heinous crime of "immorality", or the oppressed, persecuted females all over the desolate islamic world. They would rather promote horror stories about Guantanamo and the evil U.S. while defending the vicious, sub-human muslim fiends that are incarcerated there. They exhort inflammatory defamation of Israel and look the other way when Palestinian savages lob rockets into Israel and send suicide bombers to kill women and children. Their mission is not to protect the helpless victims of human rights violations; they are facilitators of islam's evil agenda cloaked in the respectability of a humanitarian organization, wolves in sheep's clothing.
AI is part of what has gone terribly wrong in our world; they exist in an alternative universe where evil is good and good is evil. They are in lockstep with the corrupt bureaucrats and tyrants in the equally irrelevant United Nations. To hell with them!