A non-sequitur about Amnesty

I’m sure it was a typo, but the expression is “to wit,” not “to whit.”

I wonder if CT ought to amend the links on the Right Hand Side of the page to include a section called “Sin Bin”, “Intellectually Lazy” or some other choice phrase. In that section, blogs with a proven display of intellectual laziness would be moved.

Give over, dcharles. Jacob’s one of the good guys.

I’m spending the summer at a non-profit immigration law organization which shall go nameless, but which was involved in bring over larger numbers of jewish refugees at various times, including some famous philosophers. I just want to add here that in asylum and refugee work the AI country reports are invaluable- easily the best things we have to work with. Whatever else one may want to say about them, this must be noted, and to say that they are “not doing their job” is to look pretty silly, especially when one isn’t doing anything nearly as substantial one’s self.

The times isn’t too impressed with Amnesty either

Amnesty time
Charities need heads as well as hearts

Charity and politics make for an uneasy mix. The Red Cross’s reluctance to publish its reports to governments about the vile abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was a recent reminder of how responsible charities strive to avoid being dragged into national political debates. Yet Amnesty International, which seems likely to gain charitable status in Britain for the first time under this week’s draft Charities Bill, seems to be losing the non-partisan, apolitical moorings that once anchored its international credibility. It is drifting into a fashionable agenda far from its original mission, and is making statements that are increasingly political.

The charities that do the most good tend to be those that stick almost religiously to a few, clear objectives. The less focused the mandate, the more susceptible an organisation becomes to entreaties from a vast range of good causes beyond its core expertise — and to politicisation. Unicef was arguably more effective when it concentrated on its original mission of helping poor children to survive to adulthood than when it was distracted by promoting the “rights of the child”, and became embroiled in childish rows about bisexuality. Neverthless, most large charities at one time or another face strong temptation to empire-build and suffer from mission creep.

Amnesty International has played a vital and unique role over 40 years in turning a spotlight on prisoners of conscience who would otherwise have languished forgotten in hellish jails. It has many dedicated staff who have worked tirelessly for little reward other than knowing that they were fighting for one of the truly great causes. They have succeeded in making human rights a mainstream concern and in mobilising ordinary people to light candles, write letters and influence the fate of writers, thinkers and dissidents from their homes.

But a champion of human rights must be unequivocal and impartial in its condemnation of abuses. Amnesty’s comments over the past year, and in its latest annual report, imply that the organisation has become infused with a political correctness that is far from impartial. It has been quick to condemn the United States for real and imagined improprieties during the Iraq conflict, yet virtually silent about terrorist abuses. The accusation by its secretary-general this week, that America has damaged human rights more than any other country in the past 50 years, is as ludicrous as it is irresponsible. What about Pol Pot? Or Mao Zedong’s China? Kim Il Sung’s North Korea?

Concerns about the organisation are coming not only from America. Human rights campaigners in Moscow are furious that Amnesty has refused to declare the Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky a poli- tical prisoner. They suspect that he is a little too wealthy to win Amnesty’s support.

Could such attitudes partly explain why Amnesty’s roster of political prisoners has shrunk? The organisation claims that its list has dwindled because of competition from other agencies and the understandable difficulties of tackling armed gangs which cannot be shamed into action as some governments can. Yet Amnesty’s embrace of fashionable objectives must also dilute its commitment to prisoners. Domestic violence, its latest cause, is a completely different rights issue. There is a world of difference between holding governments to their obligation not to torture people, and promoting vague rights to health and welfare. It would be a shame if such a worthy organisation were to lose respect. The message to all charitable organisations must be to beware of reaching for a halo. Prisoners of conscience may not be a trendy cause, but support for them is still of vital importance.

Exactly. Chris you put it so well, what I was trying to say in exceedingly long comments.

I really get the feeling a lot of people confuse those up-front AI press releases with the entirety or their work; or somehow assume that the work is shaped by conclusions, not the other way round. Or indeed they’re just lazy.

Thorley – since you reposted your comment here, I’ll repost my answer:

What is so outrageous in those boldened paragraphs? What exactly is wrong with outlining that human rights issues have gone unaddressed? or that there’s too little spending and commitment put on social issues?

Yes, those are opinions, conclusions, complaints and criticism. Of course one can address what you describe as the “root causes” of human rights violations and lack of democracy, in making reports thereof. Doh. Doesn’t mean there’s “vote for xyz” sticker in there.

Every opinion is political, more or less overtly. That’s still a long way from being political as a political party is, and even the most overt political statements you may consider politically wrong – condemnation of x action by y government – still don’t detract from the _facts and figures outlined in reports_.

You might also keep in mind the area of interest for an international organisation is the entire world.

So there’s no need to filter everything through American political discourse for which it would seem sometimes that even a simple mention of “social and economic justice” – or worse, that scary word, “global”! – is an endorsement of socialism.

cf the “virtually silent about terrorist abuses”:

– From the Summary of report on the PA:

Hundreds of Palestinians remained in detention without charge or trial. They included alleged members of armed groups and people suspected of “collaborating” with Israeli intelligence services. Some alleged “collaborators” were killed by armed Palestinians. Palestinian members of armed groups killed some 200 Israelis, most of them civilians. Adequate investigations into such attacks were not carried out and none of those responsible was brought to justice.

… Palestinian members of armed groups killed some 200 Israelis, including at least 130 civilians, among them 21 children, and around 70 soldiers. Many were killed in suicide bombings claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (an offshoot of Fatah), the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas), Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Palestinian armed groups also repeatedly launched mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip towards nearby Israeli cities and into Israeli settlements inside the Gaza Strip.

… The collapse of internal order and security in several West Bank and Gaza Strip towns created a situation where groups of armed Palestinians had almost free rein to carry out unlawful killings and other abuses.

At least 10 Palestinians suspected of “collaborating” with Israeli intelligence services were unlawfully killed by members of armed groups or by armed individuals. Most of the killings were carried out by members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The PA consistently failed to investigate these killings and none of the perpetrators was brought to justice.

More than 600 Palestinians were held in Palestinian prisons, detention centres or makeshift detention centres at undisclosed locations (so-called “safe houses”). Most were held on criminal charges, and about 100 were detained on charges of “collaborating” with Israeli intelligence services. Some 470 remained held without trial. There were some reports of torture and ill-treatment by various Palestinian security forces.

… Sergeant Rani Darwish Khalil Shaqqura, a member of the Palestinian security services from the Gaza Strip, was sentenced to death by firing squad by a military court on 17 May for the killing on 15 April of another member of the security services, Captain Hani ‘Atiya al-Madhoun.

And that’s just the summary of the report on the PA. Check all other countries with active terrorist groups. If that’s “silence”, I wonder what “denouncing” is.

Unless by “silence” one means, pointing out those abuses _while also pointing out the violations or questionable tactics by Israel_.

Because I can’t otherwise see what’s wrong in this:

The Israeli army killed around 600 Palestinians, including more than 100 children. Most were killed unlawfully – in reckless shooting, shelling and bombing in civilian residential areas, in extrajudicial executions and through excessive use of force. Palestinian armed groups killed around 200 Israelis, at least 130 of them civilians and including 21 children, in suicide bombings and other deliberate attacks.

…Certain abuses committed by the Israeli army constituted war crimes, including unlawful killings, obstruction of medical assistance and targeting of medical personnel, extensive and wanton destruction of property, torture and the use of “human shields”. The deliberate targeting of civilians by Palestinian armed groups constituted crimes against humanity.

Will someone please reword all that to make it more “impartial” and less “biased”, so that we can learn what exactly is meant by “impartial” and “bias”? thanks.

Ok, sorry Chris for being so repetitive. I am not familiar with the Volokh writers so I don’t have an opinion on who’s the good guys. I just get really pissed off when I read stuff like that. It’s basically the same “Abu Ghraib – not as bad as what Saddam did” rhetorical crap. Democracy – not as bad as dictatorship. Three cheers for free countries, boo for tyrannies, match is over. Hurrah we win again. We’re not as bad as them. Objections dismissed. *Applause* Groan…

Jacob Levy’s point about the importance of systemic differences to human rights is certainly valid. But I don’t think that means it’s bad for Amnesty to catalog abuses without regard to whether such abuses are “official policy” or not. Liberal democracies are as liberal democracies do; and a country might maintain the forms of liberal democracy, including stated official disapproval of human rights abuses, while in fact becoming extremely illiberal and abusive. A watchdog organization that considers the facts of abuses case-by-case without regard for the systems in which they occur is an important defense against this sort of perversion: its official blindness insulates it from being deceived by a facade of liberalism.

I’m actually kind of surprised that Levy doesn’t take this into account. He is a libertarian, after all, though not as extreme a one as I am. And the notion that the substance of human rights may be rotted away while the systemic forms remain unchanged is a pretty common one in libertarian theory.

It has been quick to condemn the United States for real and imagined improprieties during the Iraq conflict, yet virtually silent about terrorist abuses.

Uhh . . . it’s called Google. Here’s a sample of what it turned up:

More than two years into the Bush administration’s lurching war on terror, William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, is aiming some of his sharpest criticism not at the White House, but at the American political left. His message: Take on the terror threat, or risk irrelevance.

War protesters of various stripes, alongside anti-globalization and human rights activists, have staged several large rallies nationwide this year, channeling their anger at the Bush administration through slogans like “No blood for oil,” “End the imperialist occupation” and “Regime change begins at home.” But in an interview with Salon, Schulz said that the political left has thus far botched a key mission. “There’s been a failure to give the necessary attention, analysis and strategizing to the effort to counter terrorism and protect our fundamental right to security,” he said. “It’s a serious problem.”

AIUSA, by the way, is the world’s largest section.

Hello all visit my home page

Helga:

I might change my mind and start advocating the death penalty, but only for comment spammers.

“It is concerned solely with the impartial protection of human rights.”

That is just laughing stock to any Russian… AI gladly turned a blind eye to genocide of non-Chechens in Grozny in 1991-1994, and to mistreatment of minority Russians everywhere in the former USSR. However any alleged mistreatment in Russia of anyone branding him/herself “liberal” or “democratic” gets an absolute avalanche of a responce.

Key AI figures have recently co-signed a letter demanding an execution of 2 Russians currently held in Quatar, arguing that doing so would “change Russian government’s perspective on human rights”.

To sum it up, AI is just a front for clandestine political interests, just like most other NGOs.

“Key AI figures have recently co-signed a letter demanding an execution”

That’s just as likely as Bush signing up to the AI campaign to abolish the death penalty. And probably just as true.

“To sum it up, AI is just a front for clandestine political interests, just like most other NGOs.”

Yeah, sure, just like all intelligence services are a front for terrorist groups. All governments are a front for banks. And all banks are a front for drug dealers. And terrorists, again. The world is a giant vicious conspiracy of fronts.