THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 247, November 12, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SOME RIGHTS CAUSES ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
By Johanna Markind
THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ORGANIZATIONS
WHICH PRESENT THEMSELVES AS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS WITH A GENERAL MANDATE -- THEIR UNWILLINGNESS TO
APPLY THE SAME STANDARDS TO CRITICS OF ISLAM, ISLAMISTS, & THE MUSLIM WORLD AS TO THOSE SUPPORTING THEM
-- HYPOCRISY & DERELICTION OF A SELF-IMPOSED DUTY TO PROMOTE RIGHTS STANDARDS EVENHANDEDLY -- REFUSAL TO
JOIN IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ATTEMPTS OF ISLAMIST FIFTH COLUMNISTS IN THE WEST TO IMPOSE ISLAMIC LAW
& OBTAIN FOR ISLAMISTS SPECIAL PRIVILEGES AT OTHERS' EXPENSE
FULL STORY:
If you were arrested for speaking on public streets, where would you turn for help? These days, the answer may depend
on what you were saying.
Suppose you were arrested for marching through the streets of Dearborn, Michigan, protesting Israeli policies against
Palestinians. Unquestionably, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would support your rights, even filing suit on
your behalf.
Suppose, instead, you were arrested for preaching Christianity on the streets of Dearborn. Would you ask the ACLU for
help? Would it help you? Well, maybe.
Consider the four people arrested on June 18, 2010, for proselytizing passersby at Dearborn's Arab International Festival.
Certainly, the ACLU agreed that the arrests had violated the missionaries' constitutional rights. The state ACLU
chapter's Legal Director told the Michigan Messenger that "the man encouraging others to convert to Christianity
was engaged in speech protected by the First Amendment." But that is all. The organization did not issue any press
releases to that effect, address the matter on its website, or reference it in listserv emails.
According to Brenda Bove, paralegal for the ACLU Fund of Michigan, the defendants — members of Acts 17 Apologetics
— did not ask the ACLU for help. They received assistance from another organization, the Thomas More Law Center. The
trial ended on September 24, 2010, with four acquittals on charges of breaching the peace.
The ACLU touts itself as "our nation's guardian of liberty." It has pursued a strategy of assisting society's fringes,
including its most offensive elements, on the theory that, by protecting their civil liberties, it would necessarily safeguard
the rights of all. Hence, its advocacy for Nazis planning to march through Skokie, Illinois, a community with many
Holocaust survivors. The ACLU explains:
"We're not anti-anything. The only things we fight are
attempts to take away or limit your civil liberties, like
your right to practice any religion you want (or none
at all) … or to speak out — for or against — anything
at all."
Yet, strangely, the ACLU has said little about certain Islamist attempts to chill free speech and convert criticism of Islam
into a crime, although it is outspoken about government purportedly chilling Muslims' First Amendment rights. Former
ACLU Board Member Wendy Kaminer explains:
"When the U.S. State Department condemned publication
of the notorious Muhammad cartoons in 2005, and
newspapers in the U.S. declined to publish them, the
ACLU was virtually silent. In fact, talking points issued
by the press office … recommended ducking questions
about the cartoons. … Three years later, in 2008, despite
a new focus on international human rights, the ACLU
declined to join a free speech coalition opposing a UN
defamation of religion resolution that targeted criticism
of Islam."
The ACLU continues to shirk the free speech fight against Islamism by refusing to sign a petition criticizing the UN's
defamation of religion resolution as incipient censorship. Many groups have noted the danger that this declaration
poses to free expression, but the ACLU has not.
More recently, certain state chapters have advocated for critics of Islam. Notably, after almost two months of
demonstrating little interest in the case, the New Jersey chapter just filed suit on behalf of Derek Fenton, who had been
fired from his public job for burning a Koran while off duty. But the ACLU's national organization seems fixated
on America allegedly "persecuting Muslims," as illustrated by its numerous statements on the subject. It has issued no
similar statement about persecution of Jews, for example, although the FBI's most recent (2008) hate crime statistics
indicate that ten times more religiously motivated hate crimes targeted Jews than Muslims.
Like the ACLU, Amnesty International (AI) has prided itself on evenhandedness. From its Cold War beginnings, it
projected an image of impartiality by focusing on prisoners of conscience from different geographical and political
spheres (Communist, capitalist, and developing). More recently, however, it has shown deep reluctance to criticize
radical Islam. For example, Brooke Goldstein of the Children's Rights Institute found the group largely uninterested in
jihadists' use of children as suicide bombers.
The group has worked with former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, sponsoring him on a speaking tour
advocating release of detainees, despite his support for the Taliban and widespread concerns about detainee
recidivism. Upset that AI was putting the rights of al-Qa'ida terror suspects above those of their victims, Gita Sahgal,
then head of the gender unit of AI's International Secretariat, sharply criticized the organization for associating with
Begg. "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," Sahgal said.
Sahgal went public with her criticism in February, 2010, after two years of in-house warnings had been ignored. Hours
later, AI suspended her from her position. On April 9, she left AI by mutual agreement, due to "irreconcilable
differences."
The London Times obtained an internal email from Sam Zarifi, Director of AI's Asia-Pacific program, expressing
similar concerns. "We should be clear that some of Amnesty's campaigning … did not always sufficiently distinguish
between the rights of detainees to be free from torture and arbitrary detention, and the validity of their views," Zarifi
wrote to AI staffers. AI later published a letter from Zarifi essentially confirming this statement.
Sahgal later told the Guardian:
"I think the [AI] leadership is ideologically bankrupt, as
has been shown in the handling of this. There have been
systemic failures even before I went public. Questions
need to be asked of the political and senior leadership.
There is a deep misogyny in the human rights movement."
Likewise, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has sometimes sacrificed advocacy for oppressed groups to avoid offending
Muslim sensibilities. Scott Long, former Director of HRW's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program,
repeatedly accused British gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell of "Islamophobia" in Tatchell's campaign against Iran's
execution of homosexuals. Long charged that Tatchell had misrepresented criminal rapists and heterosexuals as gay
martyrs. Rather than sticking with the facts, Long's 2009 essay, "Unbearable Witness," attacks Tatchell's motives as
deriving from anti-Muslim prejudice. Although Long wrote this 18-page article indicting Tatchell and other gay rights
advocates, he apparently never published a report on Iranian repression of homosexuals that was the subject of
dozens of interviews conducted by HRW.
HRW's advocacy on the separate but related subject of Israel vis-à-vis its Muslim neighbors shows similarly skewed
priorities. Last year, the organization's fundraising and personnel were criticized for anti-Israel bias. Its own founder,
Robert L. Bernstein, censured HRW in a New York Times op-ed published on October 20, 2009:
"The plight of their citizens [of Arab and Iranian regimes]
who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large
and well-financed international human rights organization
can provide is being ignored, as Human Rights Watch's
Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel."
Between January, 2009, and August, 2010, HRW published seven reports on Israel (two ostensibly about rights
violations by Palestinians also criticized Israel), two on Iran, none on Egypt, and two primarily on Saudi Arabia. None
addressed Iran's oppression of homosexuals, Egypt's abuse of Christians, or Saudi subjugation of non-Muslims,
women, and homosexuals. HRW's 2009 report, Human Rights and Saudi Arabia's Counterterrorism Response,
focuses on detainee mistreatment without mentioning "Islamic extremism," except in reference to a New York
Times Magazine article.
By shielding Islamic people, religion, ideologies, governments, and societies from the open criticism routinely applied
to all others, these rights groups effectively favor oppressors over victims. Long's public abuse of Tatchell, while
shortchanging Iranian abuse of homosexuals, illustrates the point: HRW sacrificed advocacy for homosexuals to
advocacy for Islam.
In June, 2010, HRW apologized for Long's personal attacks on Tatchell, although not for alleging that Tatchell had
gotten his facts wrong. Joseph Saunders, HRW's Deputy Program Director, confirmed the apology's text. In August,
Long left HRW, citing health reasons. HRW has not responded to requests to clarify whether Long resigned or was
fired. His name has disappeared from the organization's website. In September, HRW published a 56-page report
critical of Saudi treatment of women and religious minorities.
There is nothing inherently wrong with focusing on certain groups or causes. The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People has as its particular mission advocacy on behalf of African-Americans. The
Anti-Defamation League was founded "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people." These organizations advocate
for other people besides and have done much good for many. They need not fight all battles to help some, and their
primary constituencies offer a lens through which they pick and choose their battles.
By contrast, the ACLU, AI, and HRW present themselves as rights groups with a general mandate. Their
unwillingness to apply the same standards to critics of Islam, Islamists, and the Muslim world as to those supporting
them amounts to hypocrisy and dereliction of a self-imposed duty to promote rights standards evenhandedly. In the
struggle against Islamist attempts to claim special privileges at others' expense, victims are well advised to seek help
from alternative sources to vindicate their rights.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Jews & Anti-Semitism
Personal Rights & Liberties -- Issues & Controversies Relating to
Individual Rights & Liberties under Natural & Civil Law
Political Correctness, Censorship, Thought Control:
Supression of Unacceptable Views & Opinions
Lawfare -- The Use of Law as a Weapon in War & Politics:
Islamist Lawfare & the "Legal" Jihad Against America & the West
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Johanna Markind is an attorney specializing in criminal law and a part-time journalist specializing in religion. This
article was sponsored by Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
The foregoing article by Johanna Markind was originally published in Pajamas Media, November 9, 2010, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2778/human-rights- causes)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
November 11, 2010
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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