A dissident of the human rights establishment

by Erica Mac Donald

Freedom of expression is a human right, but employees of human rights organizations are not always free to exercise it.

Last year, Gita Sahgal was suspended from her position as head of Amnesty International’s Gender, Sexuality and Identity unit shortly after publicly criticizing the organization for its work with a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Moazzam Begg.

In a February 7, 2010, article in the Sunday Times, Sahgal asserted that Begg was “Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban,” and expressed deep concern with Amnesty’s endorsement of the “jihadi” group Cageprisoners, in which Begg serves as director. In a memo circulated internally at Amnesty, Sahgal warned the relationship damages “Amnesty International’s integrity and … constitutes a threat to human rights.”

Sahgal was ultimately fired from Amnesty for her dissent in a case that raises a basic question for the human rights movement — when is it OK to disagree? Can a movement that sees itself as pursuing “universal” rights deal with disagreements over which rights, in a given situation, are more important?

The story of Sahgal, Begg and Amnesty International clearly illustrates these challenges.

After his release in 2005, Begg, on behalf of Cageprisoners, accompanied Amnesty on various speaking tours campaigning for the closure of Guantanamo Bay as well as urging European governments to offer a safe haven to returning detainees.

Begg was never tried or convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offenses, and he denies any sympathy for terrorism. However, Begg’s autobiography recounts his time visiting mujahedeen camps in Afghanistan in 1993, describing the experiences as life-changing and inspirational. He wrote that the Taliban was “better than anything Afghanistan has had in 20 years.” He also owned and ran a bookshop that carried fundamentalist Islamic texts and jihadi manuals.

Cageprisoners is known for championing the rights of suspected terrorists including alleged Al-Qaeda members Anwar al-Awlaki and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is believed to be behind the 9/11 attacks.

A core mission of Amnesty International is to promote and defend the rights of all people, regardless of whether or not the organization opposes the views and beliefs of those they seek to protect.

This is also a principle that Sahgal claims to uphold in her dissent from Amnesty.

In a recent interview with RightsNews, Sahgal explained that she has never questioned or doubted the legitimacy of the use of Begg’s testimony in the campaign for the closure of Guantanamo. However, she believes it is “wrong to present (Begg) at Amnesty International meetings as someone who is simply a survivor of torture who is now running a humanitarian project in Afghanistan.”

By failing to explicitly distance itself from what she interprets as Begg’s Taliban associations and jihadist beliefs, Sahgal argues that Amnesty legitimizes Begg as a defender of human rights.

“When you promote someone as a victim without being clear that his views are actually abhorrent, you are actually giving him a platform,” she said.

She continued, “I am not saying (Begg’s) rights should not be defended. Instead, I think we need to understand who the people whose rights we defend are, and make it clear that we defend their rights despite the fact that their views are abhorrent. That is the ethical bit that Amnesty has completely evaded.”

In an interview with NPR, Widney Brown, Amnesty Senior Director for International Law and Policy, argued that Begg was an effective and crucial voice in the campaign as both a British citizen and as one of the first prisoners released.

“At that point, Guantanamo Bay was absolutely shrouded in secrecy and he was a voice who could say ‘I was there and this is what happened and this is what’s going on,’ and that was critically important,” Brown said.

On April 9, 2010, Amnesty formally announced Sahgal’s departure from the organization, citing “irreconcilable differences of view of policy between Gita Sahgal and Amnesty International regarding Amnesty International’s relationship with Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners.”

Diana Hortsch addresses this controversy in a 2010 Columbia Human Rights Law Review article, “The Paradox of Partnership.” Ultimately, Hortsch calls for stricter adherence to the INGO charter, of which Amnesty is a signatory, in order to promote more responsible and accountable behavior in terms of internal personnel issues as well as public campaigns and strategies.

In Sahgal’s view, Amnesty failed to do any extensive investigation with regard to Begg’s positions and writings prior to endorsing him and taking him on a speaking tour in Europe, thus making the organization quite vulnerable to criticism when the story went public.

The capacity and willingness to do such investigations, according to both Sahgal and Hortsch, could have greatly changed the nature of the events that resulted from the very public unveiling of Amnesty’s relationship with Begg.

In Sahgal’s view, however, the damage has been done.

“Amnesty has thrown aside any commitment to universality, and they have thrown aside any serious commitment to women’s rights,” she says.

It seems that the human rights movement cannot live up to its ideals without addressing this dissent from within.

Published in RightsNews Volume 29, no. 3, May, 2011.
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