Category Archives: Human Rights

She Said

By Faisal | Published: May 10, 2010

Two standout passages from a superb interview of Ayaan Hirsi-Ali in the Observer, by Emma Brockes. Brockes calls her “narcissistically provocative” before going on to write, “To Hirsi Ali, the act of speaking out, of saying what no one else will say, seems at this stage to be almost a pathology; to override all other considerations”.

The first of those passages, on the moral bankruptcy of post-modern Western feminism and feminist intellectuals in particular. Hirsi-Ali is rightly critical of the of their stupendously narrow and blinkered response to the denial of basic rights of women in Muslim-majority societies:

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Also posted in Islamism | 1 Comment

G!D the “misogynist” and other cyclical lepidopterisms

By bananabrain | Published: May 6, 2010

thanks to the delightful sonia from pickled politics, i ended up in a jolly discussion over at butterflies and wheels on feminism and religion. they seem to have closed the comments for some reason, but i still thought it was an interesting subject and thought i’d continue it here if anyone (like ophelia benson or amy clare) was interested. there are some unresolved questions. amy asks:

“Do Anglicans, even moderates, really think of G!D as a sexless being? I was under the impression that most moderate religious people still think of G!D as male. People could use the singular ‘they’ and refer to a ‘parent’ if they were really that bothered.”

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Also posted in Blogosphere, Esoterica, Ethics, Exegesis, Feminism, Hermeneutics, Interfaith, Jewish Extremism, Moral relativism, Obscurantism, Secularism | 8 Comments

“Defensive Jihad” Is A Threat to All Human Rights

By Effendi | Published: April 26, 2010

“Jihad, whether of the defensive or offensive variety, constitutes a profound threat to all human rights. Amnesty International cannot afford to equate views that are underpinned by systematic discrimination towards women and minorities with those that respect all human rights. Senior human rights advocates and many people across Asia, Africa, and Latin America understand this — they have no choice but to deal with all threats to human rights simultaneously. Universality is no abstract principle for them but often a matter of survival.

It is time that Europeans and North Americans active in human rights movements understood this and told their leaders so.”

– Gita Sahgal

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Dangerous Liaisons

By Guest | Published: April 26, 2010

This is a cross-post by Gita Sahgal via Human Rights For All

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For the past two months, the concerns that I expressed publicly about Amnesty International’s relationship with Moazzam Begg have received attention in the world’s media and sparked discussion wherever human rights people gather, from board meetings to coffee shops. In some parts of the world, there is bewilderment — who is this Gita Sahgal who suddenly criticised her employer? And who is Moazzam Begg?

But in the one organisation where debate should be most vigorous, that is in Amnesty International itself, there appears to be total silence. This could be due to apathy towards the key questions of the day: what does the universality of rights mean? And who controls its meaning?

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Also posted in Islamism | Leave a comment

Women’s Rights, Human Rights, and the Left

By Guest | Published: April 26, 2010

From Meredith Tax of Taxonomy Blog:

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I’ve been thinking about feminism, human rights, and the left and want to explore some of the ideas I laid out in a blog in February called “Underlying Philosophical Differences,” which discussed Gita Sahgal’s struggle with Amnesty. I kept asking myself why I cared so much. I have never even been a member of Amnesty; why should Gita’s struggle resonate so deeply? I have come to realize that her struggle mirrors my own political journey.

I became a movement activist initially because of the war in Vietnam. I wanted to end US imperialism and racism, and bring about social justice for all. Though I had a sense of women’s oppression from childhood and became active in the women’s liberation movement as soon as I made contact with it, I continued to identify as a left wing person and to raise women’s issues within that context.

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Also posted in Feminism | Leave a comment

Amnesty in the dock

By Faisal | Published: April 25, 2010

The liberal consensus at the Guardian has finally caved in on the matter of Gita Sahgal and Amnesty International and has decided to report the story without resorting to malignant reportage on Sahgal (like some other “progressives” I could mention):

It has been a strange, disorientating and upsetting few months for Gita Sahgal. The former head of Amnesty International’s gender unit was suspended in February after a very public and acrimonious dispute with her bosses. Two weeks ago she left it altogether. Her departure was provoked, according to a statement by Amnesty, by “irreconcilable differences”.

The row – over Amnesty’s links with Islamist pressure groups – has led to a succession of negative headlines for a body unused to such bad publicity. According to Sahgal, the affair was symptomatic of an organisation that has lost its moral bearings and risks alienating whole swathes of liberal sympathisers.

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Posted in Human Rights | Leave a comment

Reply to Sunny Hundal: Tell us the difference between Al-Awlaki and Mehsud

By Faisal | Published: April 14, 2010

Given the kind of wild approximations and sweeping generalisations Sunny Hundal makes here, it might not hurt him to trouble himself with some data on terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

The number of fatalities due to terrorist violence in Pakistan between 2003 and 2009 came to 25,070. The largest number of deaths occurred in 2009, which came to 11,585 in one year alone.

The SATP report where I get this information from also says

“Since media access is heavily restricted in the troubled areas of Pakistan, and there is only fitful release of information by Government agencies and media reportage, the actual figures could be much higher”.

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Also posted in Moral relativism | 57 Comments

How an “Imperialist” Schoolgirl Trashed A “Post-Colonial” Academic

By Faisal | Published: April 13, 2010

Alaina Podmorov is a 13 year old girl from Canada who started a humanitarian campaign for the education of girls and women in Afghanistan.

She wrote this article in response to a masters’ thesis by the University of British Columbia’s Melanie Butler. This is a snippet from Alaina’s article:

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Also posted in Moral relativism, Obscurantism | 10 Comments

A “Leading Human Rights Organisation” on Zionist Tentacles

By Guest | Published: April 13, 2010

This is a cross-post by habibi

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So Amnesty International is standing by Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners.

Let’s have a look at a new article by Yvonne Ridley, published on Cageprisoners’ website. It provides another insight into the mentality of the Islamist outfit. Ridley is Cageprisoners’ patron, as well as a Hamas funder and a presenter for Press TV, the English language voice of the Tehran regime.

The topic is the rioters at last winter’s anti-Israel and pro-Hamas demonstrations in London. Who should be blamed for criminals being brought to book? That’s easy:

For too long have we allowed the long, poisonous tentacles of Zionism and Islamaphobia to twist and weave their way into British courts. Ordinary, law-abiding citizens of faith and no faith have had enough of seeing our courtrooms hijacked by those who believe some are more equal than others when it comes to freedoms and liberties.

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Also posted in Antisemitism | 4 Comments

Amnesty Prefers Jihadists to Feminists

By Faisal | Published: April 12, 2010

It’s official. Amnesty International’s policy on human rights advocacy in Afghanistan or Pakistan encompasses your average jihadist’s right to wage “asymetrical resistance”. This means is that Amnesty has now decided that indiscriminate attacks by jihadists on their “enemies” which often includes the loss of life of innocent civilians is not antithetical to human rights. For Amnesty, the rights of women and heterodox muslims, and other ‘collateral damage’ of “jihad”, are secondary to the human rights of “jihad in self-defence”.

Nick says:

Well, given the contortions in modern liberalism, Amnesty’s abandonment of universal human rights was always likely. In the 2000s I wrote that Amnesty was becoming equivocal about political violence, torture, racism and the hatred of women and gays if abuse could not be blamed on the West. (Here scroll down.) Still, its final collapse remains a melancholy spectacle and a shocking one.

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Also posted in Feature | 6 Comments

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