Sunday Times <\/em>published an article in which she was quoted as saying\u2014among other things\u2014that the Begg collaboration \u201cfundamentally damaged\u201d Amnesty\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\nSeveral hours later, Amnesty leadership suspended Sahgal\u2019s employment.\u00a0 According to Amnesty Director Claudio Cordone, the leadership took this decision \u201cto make clear that she was no longer speaking on behalf on Amnesty International.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sahgal issued a statement that same evening, saying, \u201cI have now been suspended for trying to do my job and staying faithful to Amnesty\u2019s mission to protect and defend human rights universally and impartially.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amnesty said that Begg deserved to have his rights protected as much as anyone. The organization also claimed that neither Begg nor Cageprisoners was guilty of human rights abuses.\u00a0 Director Cordone acknowledged that Amnesty did not agree with all of Cageprisoner\u2019s views\u2014in particular, with their willingness to engage directly with the Taliban and with their support of defensive jihad\u2014but specified that these positions were not, in his opinion, antithetical to human rights.<\/p>\n
Sahgal argued otherwise.\u00a0 On several occasions, she mentioned how, \u201cas a former Guantanamo detainee, it was legitimate to hear his experiences.\u201d\u00a0 However, she emphasized, \u201cAs a supporter of the Taliban it was absolutely wrong to legitimize him as a partner.\u201d\u00a0 She was supportive of him speaking as a victim, but not of Amnesty forming a partnership with him.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, some Amnesty supporters accused Sahgal of playing into stereotypical Islamophobic norms and of imprudently turning Amnesty\u2019s internal discussions public.<\/p>\n
One year later, Sahgal continues to espouse her beliefs and denounce Amnesty\u2019s actions.\u00a0 In an interview, she said, \u201cEvery Amnesty partner should believe in the universality of human rights.\u201d\u00a0 If this standard is breached, Amnesty is not, according to her, fulfilling its duty.<\/p>\n
Not everyone in the human rights world holds such steadfast views on partnership. For instance, Zehra Arat, Co-Chair of Columbia University\u2019s Human Rights Seminar, did not find it that unusual for Amnesty to have partnered with Begg in its \u201cCounter Terror with Justice\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the human rights world,\u201d she said, \u201cyou often partner with people with common denominators [on specific topics], even if your overall agendas are quite different.\u201d She pointed to several instances in which human rights organizations have partnered with governments, despite the government having committed egregious human rights violations in the past.<\/p>\n
Arat does, however, find it troubling that the partnership continued even after people within Amnesty began questioning it.\u00a0 \u201cIt seems that after concerns were voiced, they were dismissed by the top administration.\u00a0 That is what I find scary\u2014not that they chose to partner with Cageprisoners in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGitagate\u201d was not the first time Amnesty was in two minds about a partnership, nor will it be the last. \u00a0The need for partnership in the human rights world will not change anytime soon\u2014many injustices are simply too big to fight alone.<\/p>\n
When choosing partners, however, human rights groups should be mindful of balancing their organization\u2019s goals with their moral imperatives.\u00a0 After all, they\u2014more so than private corporations or governments\u2014have a distinctly noble reputation to uphold.<\/p>\n