Human Rights For All

• Our Letter in Response to Comments by Amnesty’s New Seceretary General in an article in The Observer (UK)

  24 August, by admin

  To our very great disappointment, Amnesty International refused to debate with us or Gita Sahgal whose public stand had sparked this important debate. Instead, senior leaders persistently mislead the general public by trying to claim that they were being criticized for defending the rights of terrorist suspects, and they have affirmed their support for Begg. Sadly, Salil Shetty, who is not mired in the failures of the past, seems to have continued with this position. We urge him to clarify his remarks, which as quoted, constitute an attack on the reputation of Gita Sahgal.

  Amnesty International has just had an internal review which has validated Gita Sahgal’s allegations, and identified serious failings of ‘due diligence’ by the senior management. You have reflected none of this in your article. But the findings of the review make a debate more urgent than ever.

• The Millions and the Foolish Few: A speech by Gita Sahgal

  21 June

  Friends – this campaign stands at the heart of a debate over the future of Britain. It also stands at the heart of global attempts to destroy the most basic rights, to invade liberty and to crush equality and to do this in the name of upholding and promoting human rights. We stand here today facing down forces of racism and fundamentalism as we struggle for secularism.

• Human rights organizations’ double standards and hierarchy of rights

  31 May

  For years, not only in Muslim countries but also in the West, the debate over a woman’s right to veil has been recognized as a complex issue. In the last week of April 2010, two simultaneous discussions about veiling took place in two different locations across the world. In Belgium, the parliament put to vote a law banning women from wearing burqas in public spaces. In Iran, government officials announced their plans for further expansion and enforcement of both veiling and chastity laws. Based on the law in Belgium, if a woman covers her entire body, including her face, she will be fined the amount of 15-25 Euros – or imprisoned for one to seven days. Based on Iran’s plan of action regarding the expansion of veiling and chastity, governmental entities are required to create further restrictions and limitations around issues of veiling and gender segregation within every public space.

• Gita Sahgal Calls on Amnesty International: ‘Stop Covering Up or We Start Cleaning Up’

  26 May

  28th May is the 49th anniversary of Peter Benenson’s launch of Amnesty International. But as the organization begins planning celebrations, Gita Sahgal asks whether Amnesty International’s leaders have lost their grip on reality. Do sections of the human rights movement lend their credibility to protecting Islamists rather than protecting their rights?

• A Conversation with Gita Sahgal by Deniz Kandiyoti (Parts one and two - on openDemocracy)

  20 May

  "There is a struggle to be had. It is time to challenge the hegemony of the formal human rights movement and its uncritical embrace of identity politics". Gita Sahgal in conversation with Deniz Kandiyoti. Part one and two.

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