A senior official at Amnesty International is uncomfortable over the group's close association with a former Gitmo inmate.

Richard Kerbaj of the TimesOnline:

A SENIOR official at Amnesty International has accused the charity of putting the human rights of Al-Qaeda terror suspects above those of their victims.

Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty's international secretariat, believes that collaborating with Moazzam Begg, a former British inmate at Guantanamo Bay, "fundamentally damages" the organisation's reputation.

In an email sent to Amnesty's top bosses, she suggests the charity has mistakenly allied itself with Begg and his "jihadi" group, Cageprisoners, out of fear of being branded racist and Islamophobic.

Sahgal describes Begg as "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban". He has championed the rights of jailed Al-Qaeda members and hate preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged spiritual mentor of the Christmas Day Detroit plane bomber.

[...]

"I believe the campaign fundamentally damages Amnesty International's integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights," Sahgal wrote in an email to the organisation's leaders on January 30. "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment."

Nothing these "human rights groups" do surprises me anymore. Making common cause with a man who stands for absolutely everything AA should be opposing is, as the Sahgal points out, fundamentally damaging to the reputation of the group.

Note also the reason for this association of strange bedfellows; political correctness. When fear of appearing to be un-PC overcomes the fundamental principles of a group, you have an organization more concerned with symbolism than in promoting what they say they want to promote.

I wonder if they'll sever ties with this terrorist lover?