For those who are unfamiliar, Gita Sahgal, the head of the Amnesty International 'gender unit', this last weekend blasted Amnesty for allowing purported 'Taliban sympathisers' & 'radical Islamic fundamentalists' like Moazzam Begg to take part in round-table discussions & public forums sponsored by Amnesty International. Mr. Begg, himself a former Guantanamo detainee, however has steadfastly disassociated himself from the Taliban & al-Qaeda, & has instead focused his energies on promoting human rights. In 2006 he founded a group called Cage Prisoners to better make people aware of the plight of those who are wrongly imprisoned around the world. Although until now, part of the group's focus has been on fellow Guantanamo detainees still held in the U.S.-run prison, the group has also sought to shed significant light on cases around the world. Shortly after his own release from Guantanamo, Mr. Begg himself personally intervened in 2005 on behalf of 4 Christian peace workers taken hostage in Iraq. Due to the often overlapping work of both Cage Prisoners & Amnesty International it is only natural that the two groups would occasionally share venues, if not actual resources. Amnesty International has since suspended Ms. Sahgal from her duties, pending an investigation.
What follows is the letter I just wrote to Amnesty International encouraging them to disregard the obviously politically-inspired maneuvering by Ms. Sahgal. :
Gita Sahgal is an extremely good example of someone who exists more in a shallow & self-limiting world of reactionary histrionics than in a embroadened, emancipated one full of informed awareness and observation. She has short-sightedly targeted, & seriously impugned, the reputation of Amnesty International, with her obsessively spurious (& not to mention nonsensical) tirades on the efforts & sensibilities of the likes of Moazzam Begg & Tariq Ramadan. Aside from the fact that she does this in public forums that cleverly highlight her propagandistic attacks rather than through the proper organisational channels available within, she has also chosen these occasions to belittle any actual progress that these individuals may have made within the area of human rights.
She has conveniently & consistently chosen to ignore whatever valuable contributions these individuals or their organisations are accomplishing, both by their sheer presence as well as by their works, and replacing them with highly partisan admonishments full of imaginary transgressions, but that have little to no basis in reality. Judging from the sheer childish nature and depth of her attacks, it is equally obvious she knows nothing of these men, nor has she at all bothered to acquaint herself with their body of work, whether it be in the form of speaking engagements, their actions on the part of individuals or within their own writings. And simply calling for the barring of their involvement or future inclusion within any Amnesty International sponsored forums, itself bespeaks of censorship of a most insipid kind.
In very short time, she has quickly jettisoned herself into the British equivalency of a Michelle Bachman or an Ann Coulter; or if you go farther back, of a Jeanne Kilpatrick or Anita Bryant. She claims to be for human rights, yet only insofar as those rights are specially reserved for those who happen to see as she does. If an individual, tribe or people happens to at all aspire or believe differently, whether the terms are cultural, political or spiritual, and even if the perceived differences are but moderate in scope, they nevertheless are then to be ostracised and ridiculed. Obviously there is no middle ground with Ms. Sahgal.
It is very unfortunate, in retrospect, that [Amnesty] has even made the choice of hiring her in the first place. An energetic penchant for activism is one thing, but a grotesquely polemical and highly dualistic modus operandi is another. There is simply no excuse for such ill-conceived antagonism within the utter seriousness of the situation of human rights. {Human rights for ALL, I might add.}
I sincerely hope you reconsider any future relationship with Ms. Sahgal. Such a partnering would only continue to subject Amnesty International to her future hostile attacks, and render your extraordinary institution vulnerable to a heightened public scrutiny of a most odious nature. The advisable path would be to admit a mistake was made with her employment, let the public know of the highly transparent inequities that Ms. Sahgal has brought forth upon herself, and allow it to end right there. In a matter of weeks, most likely few will remember her name.Thank you.
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