Amnesty International and Cageprisoners

Statement by Gita Sahgal

7 February 2010

This morning the Sunday Times published an article about Amnesty International’s association with groups that support the Taliban and promote Islamic Right ideas. In that article, I was quoted as raising concerns about Amnesty’s very high profile associations with Guantanamo-detainee Moazzam Begg. I felt that Amnesty International was risking its reputation by associating itself with Begg, who heads an organization, Cageprisoners, that actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals.

Within a few hours of the article being published, Amnesty had suspended me from my job.

Update Martin Bright is reporting that Gita has been suspended. When presented with a choice between violentpatriachy and women's rights Amensty like so many other liberal institutions chooses reaction.

Running a ‘spoiler' is the most joyous pleasures the rat like editor can experience. He knows that a rival paper has a great story coming, so he works out what he can about it and publishes another paper's exclusive as his own. The Mail on Sunday seems to have done just that with its pre-emptive strike on my Observer colleague's Andrew Rawnsley's forthcoming book which is due out in a month.

I was lucky - privileged even - to be invited by the Southbank Centre to watch Daniel Barenboim rehearse with the Berlin Staatskapelle for his run of Beethoven and Schoenberg concerts. I am pleased to report that the maestro's temper was under control. Orchestra and conductor were at one, laughing and playing together, thoroughly comfortable with each other's company. Watching them rehearse was an intimate experience, like looking through a window at a group of old friends chatting round a dining table.

A FEW days ago, Guernica magazine accused me of not citing sources when I criticised Noam Chomsky. I responded by posting a source-ridden chapter from my What's Left (you can read the book here and the extract on Chomsky here) which detailed the shifty way in which Chomsky and all those who imitate him excuse crimes against humanity  they cannot blame on the West.

The other night I saw Dinner with Portillo -a show whose conceit of filming members of the chattering classes eating lukewarm food and regurgitating received opinions I can assert with confidence would never occur to any commissioning editor from any other country on the planet.