Amnesty International accused of shielding terrorists - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Amnesty International has been accused of putting the human rights of Al-Qaeda terrorists above those of their victims, following the charity's affiliation with a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, who has championed the rights of jailed Al-Qaeda members and hate preachers. Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty's international secretariat, believes that collaborating with Moazzam Begg and his "jihadi" group, Cageprisoners, "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 who is "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban". Begg supported Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged spiritual mentor of the Christmas Day Detroit plane bomber. 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," she added. Anne Fitzgerald, policy director of Amnesty's international secretariat, said the charity had formed a relationship with Begg because he was a "compelling speaker" on detention.