A very powerful and hard-hitting video indeed. Show this to every Flotidiot and Free Gaza loon that you know (and we all know plenty). Oh, and David Cameron. Hat tip to INN.

Another triumph for terrorism, courtesy of Britain’s whimpering dhimmi leaders and increasingly crackpot Judges:

Terror suspects who were placed under virtual house arrest by the Government are set to claim thousands of pounds in compensation from the taxpayer.

The Court of Appeal paved the way today for the payouts after ruling the control orders breached human rights.
Three appeal judges rejected a Government challenge to a landmark High Court ruling allowing compensation claims in the cases of two alleged fanatics AF and AE, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The men may now lodge compensation claims under Labour’s Human Rights Act. This is in addition to legal fees running to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

While in office, former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson agreed the orders must be ‘revoked’ because neither man had been given sufficient disclosure of the evidence supporting the allegations of terror-related activity made against them.

Mr Justice Silber, sitting at the High Court in London in January, said the orders must not only be revoked but quashed – with retrospective effect.

The decision effectively gave the go-ahead for damages claims for loss of liberty and alleged violations of the
European Convention on Human Rights dating back to 2006, when the orders were first imposed.

The Government appealed against the single judge’s decision. But today Lord Justice Maurice Kay, sitting with Lord Justice Rix and Lord Justice Stanley Burnton, dismissed the appeal and ruled the ‘appropriate remedy’ was quashing with retrospective effect.

Lord Justice Kay said: ‘I agree with the submission made on behalf of the controlees that, if the appropriate remedy was merely revocation, there is a risk that the breach of convention rights would go substantially unremedied.’

As if we weren’t pandering enough to those that wish to kill us, these appeal judges are now paving the way for them to be enriched with undeserved ‘compensation’. David Cameron pledged to abolish the Human Rights Act, that enabler of leftist-inspired EU legislation that puts this country in harm’s way from terrorism, and introduce an amended, common-sense ‘British Bill of Rights’ to replace it.

It looks as if he has either been arm-wresteled into this by his woeful coalition partners, the, Liberal Democrats, or he has ditched the idea as inconvenient.

[Source: Daily Mail]

Would a kafir get such treatment in an Islamic jail? Gitmo's prisoner 'welcome pack'

The Obama administration would quickly send home six Algerians held at the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but for one problem: The men don’t want to go. Given the choice between repatriation and incarceration, the men choose Gitmo, according to their lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler had ruled that the claims of Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, 49, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than eight years, “are of great concern.” She said the court must ensure that there is “real substance” behind any diplomatic assurances obtained by the administration that detainees repatriated to Algeria will be treated humanely.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned Kessler late Thursday, granting the government’s emergency appeal. Much of the litigation remains under seal, but the government argues that legal precedent makes clear the executive branch’s prerogative to decide where to transfer a detainee.

Mohammed’s attorneys declined to comment. Human rights activists said they would appeal, possibly to the Supreme Court.

Political strife in Algeria has claimed as many as 200,000 lives since 2002. The government has employed violent tactics, including torture, to suppress an Islamist insurgency, according to human rights groups.

The State Department’s report on human rights practices in Algeria in 2009 noted that “local human rights lawyers maintained that torture continued to occur in detention facilities, most often against those arrested on ’security grounds.’ ”

Administration officials point out that despite this history, the United States, under the Bush and Obama administrations, has already sent 10 Algerian detainees home from Guantanamo Bay, and that none has been persecuted.

“We take some care in evaluating countries for repatriation. In the case of Algeria, there is an established track record and we have given that a lot of weight,” said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the active litigation. “The Algerians have handled this pretty well: You don’t have recidivism and you don’t have torture.”

The official noted that the administration has refused to repatriate detainees to countries such as China, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Uzbekistan, where U.S. officials believe there is a risk of torture or where returned detainees have been mistreated.

The administration has been preparing to repatriate one of the six Algerians. But lawyers for Aziz Abdul Naji, 35, who has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years, said he is “adamantly opposed to going back.”

“It would be outrageous and inhumane to take him against his will,” said Doris Tennant, one of his lawyers.

The government, acting on the belief that Naji recently changed his mind, had planned to fly him home. If officials go ahead, it would be the first involuntary transfer out of Guantanamo Bay by the Obama administration.

Lawyers for the six cleared Algerians said their clients live in fear of being forcibly repatriated.

“These men would rather stay in Guantanamo for the rest of their lives than go to Algeria. That speaks volumes,” said David Remes, an attorney for detainee Ahmed Belbacha, who was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison by an Algerian court last year for alleged association with an illegal armed group. “They are terrified to go, but this administration is willing to march them off a cliff.”

Human Rights Watch said that the detainees sent home earlier were not perceived as particularly threatening by Algeria because of their age or health, and that the risk of torture is greater for remaining detainees.

“The U.S. has a legal obligation not to send people to countries where they could be tortured,” said Stacy Sullivan of Human Rights Watch.

But an administration official said the arguments of the lawyers and human rights activists are “very abstract and unconvincing.” The official did say they will consider whether Belbacha, 40, should be resettled in a third country because of the conviction in absentia.

The official also acknowledged that there is another, practical reason to send the Algerians home. Of the approximately 22 detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay that the administration wants to resettle in third countries, it has pledges for about half of them, according to the official.

“What’s the government’s hurry?” he said. “Guantanamo isn’t closing anytime soon, and these men are willing to wait there even if they are last in line to get out.”

Given the choice of spending jail time, under whatever legal status, in a US-run Jail or an Islamic jail, no-one in their right minds would choose the latter – even if that US-run jail is Guantanamo.

How telling (and how heavily ironic) to see the lawyers for these terrorists (and the vast majority of them are terrorists) pleading for them to be allowed to serve out their sentences in Gitmo – on human rights grounds!

[Source: Washington Post]

Malnutrition and poor health in Gaza

More anti-Israel bias from British medical journal The Lancet – which should perhaps stick to the other kind of ‘doctoring’:

Palestinian health experts say many children are at risk of stunted growth or malnutrition due to Israel’s blockade of [Gaza] Strip.

Palestinian health experts studying the impact of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip say it threatens to cause long-term damage to Palestinians’ health, with many children at risk of stunted growth or malnutrition.

In a series of studies published in the Lancet medical journal on Friday, researchers also said Israel’s attack on the region in early 2009 had a devastating effect, causing injury, displacement and social suffering, particularly among children.

Stress levels are also high, with women describing the terror of giving birth under siege. “I cannot believe that I did not die,” said one woman cited in the research.

Around 1,400 people were estimated to have died and many more injured during the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009. The health experts described the destruction of infrastructure, including homes, as “unprecedented”.

Israel has slightly eased the blockade it imposed on the region soon after Islamist group Hamas, which rejects Western calls to recognize Israel’s right to exist, won a Palestinian election in 2006. Restrictions were tightened after Hamas seized power in Gaza the following year.

“The siege of this region continues to be the main obstacle for improvement of the living conditions and the quality of life of the population,” said Niveen Abu-Rmeileh of Birzeit University’s institute of community and public health in the West Bank.

Despite its blockade, Israel allows medical and humanitarian aid into Gaza and the Israeli military says 7,000 Palestinians visit Israel from Gaza each month for medical treatment for serious conditions.

Childbirth
In a study looking at some of the health consequences of the attack itself and conducted before the embargo easing, Abu-Rmeileh’s team analysed health-related quality of life using data from a random survey of about 3,000 Palestinian households.

Almost a third of the sample population was displaced during the war, while 39% of their homes were either completely or partly destroyed. By the end of the study in August 2009, three quarters of the damaged homes had yet to be repaired.

The study also found that more than 70% of households were reliant on food aid, and 57% of respondents whose families received food aid rated quality of life as “less than good” compared with 30% of respondents who did not.

A second study looking at childbirth under siege interviewed five midwives and 11 women about their experiences during the bombings. They described how they coped with fear, violence and uncertainty around them as they waited for labor to begin.

One woman quoted in the study said the worst time was when darkness fell: “I was not thinking like other people in face of death or shelling, but was only thinking of my case. What would happen if I had labor pains at night? How will I manage? They were shelling even ambulances. Nights were like nightmares. Each morning I breathed a sigh of relief that daylight had appeared.”

Kholoud Nasser from the Ministry of Education in Ramallah, looked at Palestinian children’s diets and the knock-on effects for their health and education.

In a study of around 2,000 children and adolescents, she found that one in four misses breakfast – the main indicator of healthy eating habits – while one in 10 is anemic, and one in 17 is stunted. Around 2% are underweight and 15% are either overweight or obese.

“Comprehensive and effective school nutrition programs that are targeted at all age groups, with special attention to adolescents and girls, are needed because the data for overweight and iron-deficiency anemia are alarming,” Nasser wrote in the study.

The Lancet has a history of this sort of thing. As documented at the excellent CAMERA counter-bias website, a combination of biased sources, general editorial slant and the publication on occasion of complete untruths, conspire to perpetrate the blood libels so often levelled at Israel by Islamists and leftists.

As ourselves and others have reported, there is no ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza. What there is, is a terrorist gang passing for a government, that daily smuggles weapons into Gaza and fires rockets and mortars at innocent Israelis.

A country like Sudan, perhaps?.

The real humanitarian crisis in the Muslim world

[Source: YNet News]

Muslims are reportedly 'running the show' at several British prisons

Apparently it had been ‘incorrectly served’. Insufficient dhimmitude with the salt and pepper, perhaps? Feel the Love and Peace™ of Islam:

 Inmate beat up jailer in halal food row

An inmate who viciously beat up a prison officer after a row over how his food was cooked has been given an extended jail sentence.

Alec Walker 49, hurled abuse at officer David Larsen after he complained his halal meal had been incorrectly served to him at Forest Bank prison in Salford.

Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard that Walker was escorted back to his cell, where he told the officer: “Come on then. You and me, now.”

Walker, a Muslim, punched the warder hard in the face, knocking him into a washbasin. He then rained down blows on his head with a clenched fist.

Mr Larsen tried to call for help, but he had dropped his radio during the incident in July last year.

Walker shouted ‘I’m going to kill you’ before he was dragged off his victim by other warders.

Mr Larsen suffered a broken nose which later needed surgery, cuts to his mouth and lips, two black eyes, blurred vision, and extensive bruising in the attack.

Walker, in Forest Bank for breach of a previous suspended sentence, claimed he had been assaulted and was forced to retaliate. He later pleaded guilty to a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Paul Hodgkinson, defending, said Walker, who gave his address as Manchester Prison, had spent a large proportion of his life in custody and now realised that unless he changed, he would spend the rest of his days behind bars.

Recorder Raymond Wigglesworth, sentencing him to three years, plus an additional two years on licence, told Walker: “This was a serious offence against an officer acting in the course of his duty.

“Apart from the injuries he suffered at your hands, he considers that his reputation within the prison service has been irreparably damaged.”

“Muslims run it. Muslims run the prisons and there’s nothing the screws [Prison Service] can do about it. For a Muslim you’d say it’s good but for a non-Muslim, it’s very, very bad,” – “Jay”, Muslim former inmate in a BBC interview, March 2010

The substantial over-representation of Muslim prisoners in Britain (12% of the population against a wider Muslim population of under 3% – even greater in higher security facilities), together with the authorities’ over-accommodation of Muslim prisoners’ demands are becoming a major issue in the UK Prison Service.

It is precisely this kind of pandering and self-censorship that needs to be challenged head-on. It’s not conflation when there is growing evidence of a direct correlation between the two. Time for an honest debate.

[Source: Manchester Evening News]

Bülent Yildirim of terror-supporting Turkish Gaza Flotilla meeting his friend Ismail Haniyeh, senior political leader of Hamas

It is emerging that not only are the Turkish Gaza flotilla organisers IHH the lead organisers of the violent ambush of Israeli military personnel boarding the main vessel of the so-called Palestinian ‘aid mission yesterday’, but they are also deeply involved in the funding of violent, anti-Western Islamic terror:

The Turkish organizers of the Gaza Strip-bound flotilla that was boarded yesterday by Israeli commandos knew well in advance that their vessels would never reach Israeli waters. That’s because the organizers belong to a nonprofit that was banned by the Israeli government in July 2008 for its ties to terrorism finance.

The Turkish IHH (Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi in Turkish) was founded in 1992, and reportedly popped up on the CIA’s radar in 1996 for its radical Islamist leanings. Like many other Islamist charities, the IHH has a record of providing relief to areas where disaster has struck in the Muslim world.

However, the organization is not a force for good. The Turkish nonprofit belongs to a Saudi-based umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). Notably, the Union is chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is known best for his religious ruling that encourages suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. According to one report, Qardawi personally transferred millions of dollars to the Union in an effort to provide financial support to Hamas.

In 2008, the Israelis banned IHH, along with 35 other Islamist charities worldwide, for its ties to the Union of Good. This was a follow-on designation; Israelis first blocked the Union of Good from operating in the West Bank and Gaza in 2002.

Interestingly, the Union of Good may not only be tied to Hamas. Included in the Israeli list of 36 designees was the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). In 2006, both the U.S. government and the United Nations designated the IIRO branch offices in Indonesia and the Philippines for financing al Qaeda. French magistrate Jean-Louis Brougiere also testified that IHH had an “important role” in Ahmed Ressam’s failed “millennium plot” to bomb the Los Angeles airport in late 1999.

The U.S. government, it should be noted, also views the Union of Good as a terrorist organization. On November 12, 2008, a press release from the U.S. Treasury announced the umbrella group’s leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), stating that the group was “created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to the terrorist organization.”

“Terrorist groups such as Hamas continue to exploit charities to radicalize vulnerable communities and cultivate support for their violent activities,” said Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey.

According to Treasury, Hamas’s leadership actually created the Union of Good in 2000—just after the launch of the armed campaign against Israel—as a means to transfer funds to Hamas. At the time of designation in 2008, the Treasury believed that the Union of Good was transferring “tens of millions of dollars a year” to Hamas-controlled entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As the Treasury release explained, “The Union of Good acts as a broker for Hamas by facilitating financial transfers between a web of charitable organizations—including several organizations previously designated… for providing support to Hamas—and Hamas-controlled organizations in the West Bank and Gaza. The primary purpose of this activity is to strengthen Hamas’ political and military position in the West Bank and Gaza.”

It gets worse. The Treasury, drawing from declassified documents, stated unequivocally that the Union of Good “compensated Hamas terrorists by providing payments to the families of suicide bombers. One of [the charities], the Al-Salah Society, previously identified as a key support node for Hamas, was designated in August 2007… The Society employed a number of members of the Hamas military wing and supported Hamas-affiliated combatants during the first Intifada.”

Then there’s the leadership. Apart from the aforementioned Qardawi, Union of Good’s top officials include Hamas members, as well as Yemeni national Abd al-Majid al-Zindani, who was designated by the U.S. Treasury as a terrorist in 2004 for providing support to al Qaeda.

Thus, the convoy of ships allegedly trying to bring aid to the Gaza Strip could never be characterised as a “peace flotilla.” With ties to Hamas and possibly other terror groups, the IHH can only be described as a dangerous organisation. Its members only underscored this fact when they attacked Israeli naval personnel with iron bars and knives, ultimately leading to the regrettable deaths this morning on the Mediterranean Sea.

Jonathan Schanzer is a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

This story (and the others we’ve run on the hate flotilla) highlight the fact that the media and political war against Israel not only flies in the face of the facts, but attempts to whitewash the nature and motives of the instigators; leaving only the impression of a naked act of agression by the Jewish State.

As well as the usual ragbag of charities, leftist unions and the lunatic fringe groups such as the ISM that tagged along, the Turkish-organised ‘aid flotilla’ was masterminded by the sinister Turkish IHH group, known to support Hamas and possibly al-Qaeda.

What is going on?

[Source: the Weekly Review]

See video above as Israeli Navy officers plead with the ‘aid’ Flotilla to comply with instructions to deliver their cargo via Ashdod port. Boarding parties were reportedly met with a lynch mob armed with guns and knives.

So much for all the ‘we will not use resort to violent resistance’ crap from the Islamo-left ‘flotilla’ alliance:

Armed Navy ships escorted boats from the Gaza protest flotilla to Ashdod [where they should have gone originally, had delivering humanitarian aid been their genuine objective - Ed] on Monday afternoon, hours after IDF soldiers and activists clashed in a fatal raid.

International activists aboard the ships opened fire on IDF soldiers who boarded the ships to prevent them from breaking the Israeli-imposed sea blockade, the IDF said Monday.

A commando who participated in the raid said that the attack “looked like the Ramallah lynch.” IDF said the activists had prepared to kill the soldiers. The soldiers boarded the ships at about 2 a.m. Monday morning after the soldiers called on the ship to stop, or follow them to the Ashdod Port several hours earlier.

According to IDF reports, at least 15 activists were killed during the ensuing clashes and dozens were wounded. Some of the wounded were evacuated to Israeli hospitals by Air Force helicopters.

Five Navy commandos were also wounded, some of them from gunfire. At least two soldiers were seriously wounded.

In international reactions, Turkey, Sweden and Greece summonsed their Israeli ambassadors for discussions on the violence.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also responded to the clashes, which he called a “slaughter,” according to an AFP report.

Upon boarding the ships, the soldiers encountered fierce resistance from the passengers who were armed with knives, bats and metal pipes. The soldiers used non-lethal measures to disperse the crowd. The activists, according to an IDF report, succeeded in stealing two handguns from soldiers and opened fire, leading to an escalation in violence.

Al Jazeera on Monday broadcasted footage from the Gaza flotilla’s lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, showing Israeli Navy commandos boarding the ship. Helicopters could also be seen flying overhead.

“It was like a well-planned lynch,” one IDF officer said. “These people were anything but peace activists.”

The IDF said that the ships would be taken to the Ashdod Port where, despite the violence, the cargo they hold will be inspected and then transferred to the Gaza Strip via land crossings. Israeli Navy commander Vice-Admiral Eliezer Marom was commanding over the operation from sea.

The Navy made initial contact with the flotilla at 11 p.m. on Sunday ordering the ships to follow them to Ashdod Port or otherwise be boarded.

The actual boarding of the ships took place at 2 a.m. Monday and was yet to be completed by 8 a.m.

Activists aboard the ships repeatedly said they would not respond with violence to the navy’s interception of their flotilla prior to the boarding.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh appeared on Al-Jazeera television to condemn the “brutal attack” and called on the UN to intervene on the activists’ behalf.

Interesting to note that Hamas leader Haniyeh also said the following last Saturday:

It seems increasingly clear exactly what the objectives of the Flotilla of Stupid were – a Turkish/Hamas terror and propaganda trap.

[Source: The Jerusalem Post]

Red Cross training Taliban in first aid - will they be feeding them next?

If there were such a thing as the Moral Equivalency World Cup, the International Committee of the Red Cross would surely lift the Jules Rimet Trophy, had it not already been stolen:

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has given first aid training to Taliban members in Afghanistan.

An ICRC statement said the organisation had provided basic training and first aid kits to about 70 members of the “armed opposition” last month.

The ICRC said that it had also provided training to civilians.

A spokesman said that the training had been going on for some time to ensure that everyone is treated humanely.

The spokesman said the ICRC’s constitution stipulates that all parties harmed by warfare will be treated as fairly as possible.

He said that giving first aid training to armies and armed opposition groups was “routine” in other conflict areas of the world such as Sri Lanka.

Correspondents say that revelations that the ICRC is providing first aid training to the Taliban are not a surprise, but will nevertheless not go down well with many in the Afghan government.

A Nato spokesman in Kabul said that the alliance respects the humanitarian work carried out by the ICRC and recognises the need for this work to be carried out impartially.

The spokesman pointed out that Nato frequently provided first aid to injured Taliban fighters.

‘Impartial organisation’
The ICRC spokesman denied that by giving first aid training to the Taliban – rather than merely treating injured insurgents – it was crossing an important dividing line.

The ICRC attaches great importance to its impartiality
“Our aim is to treat people when and where it matters most, irrespective of what side they are on,” he said. “It is a fundamental part of our objectives.

“We treat and train people on the basis of medical necessity as an impartial organisation, regardless of race or politics.”

In a report on Tuesday looking at the state of Afghanistan’s health services, the ICRC said that “fighting, mines and road blocks” were preventing many people in the conflict-affected areas from getting to hospital.

“The armed conflict is taking a heavy toll on health services around the country. Even basic first aid is often lacking, let alone advanced war surgery. And when health care is available, it is not always easy to get it,” it said.

Afghanistan is the ICRC’s biggest operation worldwide. It has 140 international and 1,540 national staff based in its main delegation in Kabul and in five sub-delegations and 10 offices countrywide.

This astounding example of moral equivalence defies belief. While Western troops are being slaughtered in their hundreds in Afghanistan, this traitorous so-called humanitarian organisation is keeping the enemy battle fit. Boycott this inexcusable behaviour – DO NOT GIVE THESE TRAITORS YOUR MONEY.

[Source: BBC News Online]

Gita Sahgal, former Amnesty boss, who criticised the organisation for it's support of Jihadist Moazzam Begg

Today she issued the following stinging rebuke, with more than a few grains of home truth for the left-leaning charities that enable and promote Jihadism:

Human rights groups cannot tell the story of the times in which we live. There is a void, where there should be analysis of the organizational forms and ideological links of western Islamists.

Salman Rushdie has said, ‘When people are told that they cannot freely re-examine the stories of themselves, and the stories within which they live, then tyranny is not very far away’. Forty nine years ago, this week, Peter Benenson struck a blow against tyranny by announcing the formation of a new organization to support forgotten prisoners who were jailed solely for their beliefs.

This week, Amnesty International launches its Annual Report and starts year long preparations for a jamboree titled Amnesty@50. From a small group of activists it has grown into a gigantic, global organization. And in many ways, has come to resemble the forces that it has done so much to oppose. Its record of handling one of the greatest challenges to its reputation suggests that it is entirely unable to examine the story of itself or the story of its times. So difficult is it for Amnesty International to provide a coherent account of what has happened over the last few months, that it has chosen to provide no account at all.

In his reports to the International Executive Committee circulated for ‘transparency’, the Interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone, has airbrushed out any mention of the concerns that I forced Amnesty International to face when I went public with my complaint that the organisation has sanitized the reputation of Moazzam Begg, a former Guanatamo detainee. They have treated him as a human rights advocate, although he champions Anwar al Awlaki and al Timmimi.

Like all tryrants – whether of the right and left, Amnesty International raised the spectre of an assault on human rights to avoid answering questions and to imply that Amnesty International was under attack. This helped shut down internal debate or demands for accountability from its own staff. At first the managers suggested that Begg only expressed his experiences of detention; and that they did not promote his views (suggesting that his views fell somewhat short of a belief in the universality of rights).

Soon, they claimed that his views were indeed universalist but that he supported ‘defensive jihad.’ – which is, after all waged to establish systematic discrimination. Amnesty International felt that this view was not ‘antithetical to human rights. Although he published in a Muslim Brotherhood journal and has associated with the Jamaat I Islami the senior leadership decided to endorse him as a human rights advocate, which they had refrained from doing before the crisis.

But at the AIUK AGM, Begg was not mentioned in reports of a European tour to advocate for the release of the remaining Guantanamo Bay detainees. Where they had previously had a picture of Begg at the door of Downing St with Kate Allen, this picture was dropped from the power point. No wonder, Amnesty is in a fix. They do not know whether they are valorizing Begg or dropping him.

I met Begg recently and told him that I thought that he had been true to his beliefs but that Amnesty had not been true to theirs. Nor has Amnesty International acknowledged their debt to Cageprisoners or the extent of their relationship with the organization. I intend to do the work that for them. Whatever my views on Begg or Cageprisoners, I do not think that a collective corporate amnesia is the right approach to take when finding a way forward.

Now they have announced an internal independent Review to discuss criteria for partnership. The reviewers have said that they are not investigating allegations against Begg, but only looking at procedures that were followed and to suggest criteria, in order that the organization can manage its reputational risk. Nor will they examine all available evidence, only any new evidence that might come to light.

The problem is that no-one knows what evidence was examined, but there was plenty that was ignored. Senior experts well known to Amnesty International were not consulted, even though at least one wrote to the Secretary General offering to give evidence at the time I was suspended. Could it be that the leadership would rather that their research and analysis looked shoddy and incompetent than admit I was right?

Most western human rights and civil liberties organizations have watched the unfolding crisis in a frozen and complicit silence. They say nothing because they too have committed similar errors of judgement, supporting proponents of radical Islam rather than simply defending their rights. Too often in Britain, entirely legitimate concerns about racism and the marginalization of Muslims are allied to the promotion of groups associated with the Jamaat I Islami and Muslim Brotherhood.

Their programmes of social control such as promotion of the hijab are supported quite uncritically. The actions of human rights advocates mirror those of governments from Chechnya to the UK. Recruit former insurgents or fundamentalists and subcontract them to provide surveillance and control over the mass of the population. Defeat one form of fundamentalism by supporting another.

Human rights groups have entirely ignored this story and as a result simply cannot tell the story of the times within which we live. There is a void, where there should be analysis of the organizational forms and ideological links of western Islamists. There is silence on ‘faith based initiatives as part of soft ‘counter-terrorism’ strategies. They cannot accuse governments without accusing themselves.

Even internal dissent is met with expulsion as Marieme Helie Lucas, the Algerian founder of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, has recently explained. And that raises the question as to whether there is a long term determined programme of support within human rights organizations for the political programme of Islamists.

Those who make this allegation are immediately accused of supporting torture or arbitrary detention. Shadi Sadr, the courageous Iranian lawyer who has been sentenced in absentia to lashings and imprisonment, has pointed out that while Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have rushed to condemn the niqab ban in Europe, not a word has been heard against increasing dress code restrictions imposed by the State in Iran and accompanied by draconian punishments.

But it is the bland justification that Amnesty works with everybody including the Catholic Church which has seemed distinctly unwise. I expect that the Church might object to being put in the same category as supporters of Salafi Jihadi politics. In any case, Amnesty should have spoken out against the complicity, cover up and abuse of children by those exercising religious authority. In the event, they stayed shamefully silent. As one voice, the leaders stood with the Catholic establishment and ignored Catholic victims.

As Amnesty trundles towards its 50th anniversary, I will be working with others to ensure that whether Amnesty is covering up or cleaning up, whether the review provides any answers, the hidden history of human rights will be put on record. Peter Benenson said that we work in Amnesty against oblivion. If human rights organizations can no longer tell their own stories, others will do it for them.

Gita Sahgal is a former Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International. She left Amnesty International on April 9th 2010 due to ‘irreconcilable differences’. You can read her statement on leaving Amnesty International here.

It is a refreshing moment when an insider from the normally left-leaning, politically correct world of human rights NGOs speaks out about their bias and lack of moral clarity. Let us hope that it doesn’t stop here.

[Source: Opendemocracy.net]

Have they lost their memories, their minds – or both?:

NEW DELHI – Despite the relatively speedy verdict in India’s trial of the sole surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and talk of Ajmal Amir Kasab being “fast-tracked” to the gallows by the end of the year, Kasab could yet exploit the appeals process and delay his execution by years or even decades.

Judge Madan Laxmanlal Tahaliyani last week handed Kasab a death sentence after he was found guilty of waging war on India, mass murder, conspiracy and terrorism offences during the Mumbai attacks of November 26, 2008, during which 166 people were killed and 300 injured.

Kasab’s sentencing marked the culmination of a dramatic, high-profile trial that had consumed the public’s attention for 17 months, with a record 653 witnesses and a record 1,522-page judgment. The case, concluded in 271 days, was the fastest ever terror trial conducted in India. In contrast, the trial for the bombings of Mumbai in 1993 dragged on for 14 years.

However, legal experts say the trial’s swift conclusion could be undermined by a long delay in the sentencing process – India has not carried out an execution since 2004 and only two since 1998. According to Section 366 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the Mumbai trial court now needs to send the evidence for the Kasab case to the Bombay High Court, which needs to confirm the sentence. This could take up to a year or more.

If the High Court approves Kasab’s death sentence, the law gives him the option of appealing to the Supreme Court – there is no indication yet of whether he will appeal. The appeal would then be examined in great detail. If the Supreme Court approves the death sentence, Kasab – being a non-Indian – could still file a mercy petition before the president under Article 72 of the constitution.

While the presidential pardon is pending, Kasab’s execution would stay suspended – perhaps for decades. The president’s decision on a mercy petition involves many formalities, such as a need to consult the Council of Ministers.

If Kasab’s sentencing were to be stretched out, this could mar achievements seen in the judicial system’s handling of the trial. Observers say that despite the complexity and high drama of the trial, the court was still able to act swiftly and transparently. The legal fraternity is impressed that the rights of a man as clearly guilty as Kasab, who was caught on camera killing indiscriminately, were upheld by the system.

“The trial has depicted the Indian democratic processes in a favorable light. It has brought the massacre’s villain to book through the right legal procedures without any state pressure or political interference,” said Delhi-based advocate and activist Kamini Jaiswal. The lawyer said the trial underscored the “robustness of India’s criminal justice system”. All nine of the other gunmen who stormed into Mumbai with Kasab were killed during the attack.

A reminder of just some of Qasab's handiwork

Judge Tahilyani has been hailed as having conducted the trial with fairness, with his acquittal of Kasab’s Indian co-conspirators – Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmad – for lack of evidence underscoring his refusal to crack under intense public pressure.

Despite the enormity of his crime, if Kasab does decide to appeal he could cite circumstances such as his young age, underprivileged background and lack of legal knowledge. The judge, on the other hand, is legally bound to give reasons for choosing capital punishment and not life imprisonment.

Once all due processes are cleared, Kasab’s death could be further delayed by a queue on India’s death row, where over 300 convicts await execution. However, Law Minister Veerappa Moily has said Kasab could be a special case. “This is one such case which needs to fast-tracked by the High Court. Sentiment is riding very high,” Moily told NDTV this week.

“If he doesn’t file any appeal anywhere I think the chances of him getting hanged this year are quite high,” Home Secretary G K Pillai told the CNN-IBN news channel in an interview.

Public anger at the prospect of Kasab evading execution came alongside heightened resentment of Pakistan’s failure to prosecute leaders of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) group believed to have masterminded the attack. Some point to the recent case of the Pakistani-American who tried to bomb Times Square, Faisal Shahzad, as proof that Pakistan’s government and security forces are not serious enough about cracking down on militancy.

“It’s not just one incident here. This is part of a series, which is no longer an India-Pakistan problem,” Jasjit Singh, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in New Delhi, told the Associated Press.

India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram is set to visit Pakistan on June 26 for a regional conference in Islamabad, where he will hold talks with Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik as part of a rapprochement process. Although Pakistan says it has begun a “secret” trial of some LeT members, India insists that full-fledged talks will not begin until terrorist groups are fully dismantled on Pakistani soil.

Apparently, there are 300-odd Death Row inmates ahead of Qasab and in the normal scheme of things it could take up to a year for him to be executed – and there is the further possibility of a string of appeals. But isn’t Qasab a little different to the others?

Let him swing – and to hell with the Islamists, UN, the Human Rights industry and the ‘international community’.

[Source: Asia Times]