On Friday 9th April, 2010 Amnesty International announced Gita Sahgal's departure from Amnesty International. You can read her statement in full here. On 29 March 2010, the initiators of “The Global Petition: Restoring The Integrity of Human Rights” responded to Amnesty International's letter in which Claudio Cordone, Interim Secretary General of Amnesty International (AI), stated "Moazzam Begg and others in his group Cageprisoners also hold other views which they have clearly stated, for example on whether one should talk to the Taleban or on the role of jihad in self-defence. Are such views antithetical to human rights? Our answer is no, even if we may disagree with them...". Reiterating the imperative today for the public accountability of an organization such as Amnesty International, the initiators of the Global Petition set out why they believe that AI's attitude to defensive jihad raises very serious concerns: "The call for ‘defensive jihad’ is a thread running through many fundamentalist and specifically ‘salafi-jihadi’ texts. It is mentioned by Abdullah Azzam, mentor of Osama bin Laden, and founder of Lashkar e Tayyaba. It is the argument of ‘defensive jihad’ that the Taleban uses to legitimise its anti human rights actions such as the beheading of dissidents, including members of minority communities, and the public lashing of women..."
