Big mistake, AI.
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Moazzem Begg lost his job with the Taliban in Afghanistan when NATO showed up in 2001. Since then he has made a career out of being a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay, feeding the self-pity and the brainless religious chauvinism of any Muslim who will listen, in support of any violent Muslim who is not getting his own way over Kufr. Moazzem Begg's M.O. is the entirely the standard one for a Sunni rabble-rouser and hate-monger in the UK, of whom there are hundreds.
The collaboration between this scabrous and anti-social individual, and the self-appointed priesthood called Amnesty International, has been exposed by Gita Sahgal of AI themselves. AI has now suspended that lady. Another mistake.
The Times.
Gita Sahgal's statement following her suspension by AI. I have reproduced it in full below.
Moazzem Begg's pity party for terrorist cleric Abdullah al-Faisal. Faisal served four years in the UK for attempting to incite murder.
Moazzem Begg's contempt of all the evidence against Ali al-Timimi of al-Qa'ida.
Moazzem Begg's endorsement of apocalyptic cult leader and al-Qa'ida cheerleader Anwar al-Awlaki.
Excerpt from the one about Ali al-Timimi, who is serving life-plus-70:
We would like to remind all of our brothers and sisters that God tests His slaves with whatever He Wills. Many great Muslim scholars before have faced the same trials and tests for nothing more than their beliefs. As Allah said in the Quran "And they witnessed what they were doing against the believers. They had nothing against them, except that they believed in God, the All-Mighty, Worthy of all Praise!" [85:7-8]
Begg never recognizes any non-Islamist jurisdiction over any Muslim, no matter on what evidence, nor for that matter any right to self-defence against Muslim terrorism by any non-Muslim.
This is Gita Sahgal's statement:
This morning the Sunday Times published an article about Amnesty International’s association with groups that support the Taliban and promote Islamic Right ideas. In that article, I was quoted as raising concerns about Amnesty’s very high profile associations with Guantanamo-detainee Moazzam Begg. I felt that Amnesty International was risking its reputation by associating itself with Begg, who heads an organization, Cageprisoners, that actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals.
Within a few hours of the article being published, Amnesty had suspended me from my job.
A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when a great organisation must ask: if it lies to itself, can it demand the truth of others? For in defending the torture standard, one of the strongest and most embedded in international human rights law, Amnesty International has sanitized the history and politics of the ex-Guantanamo detainee, Moazzam Begg and completely failed to recognize the nature of his organisation Cageprisoners.
The tragedy here is that the necessary defence of the torture standard has been inexcusably allied to the political legitimization of individuals and organisations belonging to the Islamic Right.
I have always opposed the illegal detention and torture of Muslim men at Guantanamo Bay and during the so-called War on Terror. I have been horrified and appalled by the treatment of people like Moazzam Begg and I have personally told him so. I have vocally opposed attempts by governments to justify ‘torture lite’.
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.
I sent two memos to my management asking a series of questions about what considerations were given to the nature of the relationship with Moazzam Begg and his organisation, Cageprisoners. I have received no answer to my questions. There has been a history of warnings within Amnesty that it is inadvisable to partner with Begg. 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.
As a result of my speaking to the Sunday Times, Amnesty International has announced that it has launched an internal inquiry. This is the moment to press for public answers, and to demonstrate that there is already a public demand including from Amnesty International members, to restore the integrity of the organisation and remind it of its fundamental principles.
I have been a human rights campaigner for over three decades, defending the rights of women and ethnic minorities, defending religious freedom and the rights of victims of torture, and campaigning against illegal detention and state repression. I have raised the issue of the association of Amnesty International with groups such as Begg’s consistently within the organisation. I have now been suspended for trying to do my job and staying faithful to Amnesty’s mission to protect and defend human rights universally and impartially.
-- statement ends --
Before Begg can remove it at the request of his employers in Amnesty International (who are right now anxiously trying to get some of the egg off their faces) I will preserve here one of MB's affectations of concern for the vicious, profoundly ignorant, and sickeningly intolerant Saudi-trained hatemonger Abdullah al-Faisal:
Renowned Jamaican Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal spent a second night yesterday in the custody of the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) who arrested him in Mombasa on new year’s eve and held him on a holding charge of breaching immigration regulations.
Sheikh al-Faisal is being held at the Kilindini Port Police Station where the ATPU have issued orders that he should not be seen by anyone. The police have not formally said why he was being held but when he was arrested at the Nyali suburbs they claimed he had gone against his tourist visa by giving lectures and addressing congregations in Mosques. When his hosts were asked to take him his baggage yesterday morning they were told he would be deported. However later on Friday afternoon a source said they were still investigating his movements and had taken his laptop to Nairobi for expert analysis on the request of an unnamed foreign country which had issues with the cleric.
In 2007 Sheikh al-Faisal was deported from Britain where he had lived for twenty years to his native Jamaica for allegedly preaching “hatred against Jews, Hindus and Westerners”. He had been jailed in 2003 for the offense. Al-Faisal, who is from St James in Jamaica, left the island for the UK 26 years ago. Born Trevor William Forrest, he earned the nicknamed “Dictionary” because of his vocabulary. His parents were Salvation Army officers and he was raised as a Christian, but when he was aged 16 he went to Saudi Arabia – where he became a Muslim and spent eight years studying Islam at Madina University and later took a degree in Islamic Studies in the Saudi capital of Riyadh before going to the UK. It was not clear whether Britain had requested his removal from Kenya. ATPU officers in Mombasa however claimed the arrest was over immigration offenses but “he was of general interest to the unit”
The Muslim Human Rights Forum (MHRF) views the action against Sheikh al-Faisal as discriminatory since preachers of other faiths are usually granted similar visitors’ visa and are never restrained from preaching or conducting other lawful religious activities in the country.
“This is curtailing Sh. Faisal’s freedoms of expression and association in a very discriminative manner and holding him incommunicado which is totally
unacceptable,” said MHRF’s Chairman Al-Amin Kimathi “It follows a pattern we saw throughout last year where Muslim scholars and aid workers were arbitrarily arrested and deported from the country on very flimsy grounds,” Kimathi added. MHRF has instructed Mombasa lawyer Yusuf Abubakar to take up the case of Sheikh al-Faisal.
Source: freedetainees.org
[Footnote: Kenya did succeed in excreting Abdullah al-Faisal back to Jamaica with the help of three other jurisdictions: Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, and Antigua.]
Certainly Moazzem Begg would want Amnesty International to get rid of any Hindu, such as Gita Sahgal. That would go double for a female, who moreover is a longstanding proponent of gender equality, which is contrary to the primitive and barbaric dicta of Moazzem Begg's Taliban and al-Qa'ida comrades.
More coming.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
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