Human Rights defender suspended by Amnesty for opposing Terrorist's involvement with group

Gita Sahgal, head of Amnesty International unit for Women's Rights, has been suspended by the group, for opposing the alliance of the group with a top Taliban supporter in the UK Moazzam Begg (photo - right).

From the London Times Online, "Amnesty International damaged by Taliban link" Feb. 7:

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.

Sahgal went public with her disagreements three weeks ago, saying to The Times:

"I believe the campaign fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights. 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."

Now Michael Weiss of the Wall Street Journal reports "Amnesty and the Taliban" Feb. 26:

Now she's suspended from her job and in need of an attorney willing to confront a venerable nongovernmental organization...

What happened? Ms. Sahgal tried to get her Amnesty colleagues to cease their partnership with Moazzam Begg...

Weiss further notes:

The Taliban, Mr. Begg insists in his book, were "better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past twenty-five years." Elsewhere he has cited and sold the works of the "charismatic scholar" Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, erstwhile mentor to Osama bin Laden.