Blimp deflator: Letting out the gas

Last month’s edition of Crescent International contained articles headlined “Colonization of the Muslim mind”, “Selling the daughter of the Ummah [Aafia Siddiqui] to predators”, “Gitmo thrives despite Obama’s much-trumpeted promise”, “Will the West ever accept the concept of Islamic human rights activist”, “Internal enemies of the Ummah”, and “Zionist encroachments in Central Asia”.

I was particularly interested in the article on Islam and human rights, by Fahad Ansari. He says that “During my many years working at the Islamic Human Rights Commission, several valuable minutes were wasted every morning deleting hate mail which often described the organization as an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms before descending into a volley of Islamophobic and racist abuse”.

Even more shocking is the revelation that “Early last month, Gita Sahgal, chief of the gender unit at Amnesty International . . . publicly condemned in the national media Amnesty International’s working relationship with former Guantanamo Bay detaineee Moazzam Begg and his human rights organization, Cageprisoners”.

In the latest issue of Australia/Israel Review, satisfaction is expressed over the departure of Mohammed ElBaradei as director-general of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency and his replacement by the more pliant Yukiya Amano of Japan. Presumably, the Israelis will now have less difficulty in building a consensus for war with Iran.

Miriam Bell’s article from the same edition of AIR is above.