{"id":174721,"date":"2015-08-21T13:24:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T13:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=174721"},"modified":"2015-08-21T13:24:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T13:24:18","slug":"amnesty-international-director-alleged-links-muslim-brotherhood-radical-islamists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/amnesty-international-director-alleged-links-muslim-brotherhood-radical-islamists\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty International director alleged to have links to Muslim Brotherhood &amp; radical Islamists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A senior Amnesty International official has been found to have private links with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and revolutionary Islamists accused of plotting a coup in an Arab state.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Amnesty\u2019s director of faith and human rights, Yasmin Hussein, stayed overnight at the residence of a Muslim Brotherhood advisor during an official visit to Egypt in direct contravention of Amnesty guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>Her husband was also named as an alleged Islamist in documents relating to a 2013 sedition trial in the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>Hussein, who was until recently the charity\u2019s director of international advocacy and among its leading voices at the UN, denies being an Islamist and has said she is \u201c<em>vehemently opposed<\/em>\u201d to raising money for \u201c<em>any organization that supports terrorism.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An investigation published by The Times claimed that Hussein, 51, held a private meeting with a Muslim Brotherhood government official during an Amnesty mission to Egypt in 2012.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ebtQOkCKQ4I\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">After the private meeting with Adly al-Qazzaz, a ministerial education adviser, Hussein had dinner with his family and stayed overnight in their home.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty International was not informed of the visit, despite instructing its staff to declare any links that may generate a real or perceived conflict of interest with its independence and impartiality.<\/p>\n<p>An Amnesty employee told The Times that the charity had strict rules on overseas trips, adding: \u201c<em>For an Amnesty delegate to accept an invitation to stay at the residence of a government official is a serious breach of protocol<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Muslim Brotherhood is considered a terrorist organization in Bahrain, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.<\/p>\n<p>The transnational Sunni Islamist organization has been illegal in Egypt since 2013, when the Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown by the military in a coup d\u2019\u00c3\u00a9tat which has since led to a violent crackdown on the group.<\/p>\n<p>According to The Times, Adly al-Qazzaz\u2019s family was well connected within the party. His son, Khaled al-Qazzaz, was the Brotherhood\u2019s presidential secretary for foreign affairs. His daughter was the official spokeswoman for the group in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Both Adly al-Qazzaz and his son were arrested and detained following the military coup in 2013, but the father has since been released.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/311164-amnesty-gaza-war-crimes\/\">READ MORE:\u00a0\u2018Disproportionate &amp; indiscriminate attacks\u2019: Amnesty accuses Israel of Gaza war crimes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hussein said she did not know about the Muslim Brotherhood positions held by members of the family and that she met with al-Qazzaz to speak about \u201c<em>the synergies between human rights and educational planning<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty said that, with the exception of the overnight stay, it \u201c<em>found no evidence to suggest any inappropriate links between Ms Hussein and the al-Qazzaz family.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a separate incident, Hussein\u2019s husband was identified in documents released after a criminal trial of Islamists accused of plotting a coup in the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>Wael Musabbeh was one of several alleged British Islamists, none of whom were charged, named in documents relating to a 2013 trial that ended with the jailing of more than 60 Emirati citizens for conspiracy and sedition.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty, which challenged the fairness of the trial at the time, said it was unaware of the connection because it did not realize Musabbeh was Hussein\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n<p>Musabbeh is also a director and trustee of Human Relief Foundation, a global Islamic charity banned in Israel for its alleged connecting to groups which finance Hamas.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d4gr3dpt3uA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The charity said Hussein denied being a supporter of the Brotherhood and has told Amnesty \u201c<em>any connections are purely circumstantial<\/em>.\u201d It said it did not believe any of her alleged connections with Islamists represented a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>It added: \u201c<em>Amnesty International does, however, take very seriously any allegations that would call into question our impartiality and is therefore investigating the issues raised.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The charity has also come under fire for a separate incident in which an employee defended the organization\u2019s links with CAGE, an advocacy group which campaigns for victims of the \u201c<em>war on terror<\/em>,\u201d but which has been accused of acting as apologists for jihadists.<\/p>\n<p>The Amnesty employee voiced sympathy for those whose \u201c<em>only crime is to be soft on Islamic militants<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CAGE was condemned by Prime Minister David Cameron in February for suggesting the UK-born Islamic State (formerly ISIS\/ISIL) executioner \u201c<em>Jihadi John<\/em>\u201d was turned into a brutal killer after coming into contact with UK intelligence services.<\/p>\n<p>An Amnesty spokeswoman said the charity \u201c<em>believes that staff should feel free to discuss and debate issues and other topics which impact the organization.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>[Amnesty] campaigns and calls for states to respect, protect and fulfill their international human rights obligations, including freedom of expression, freedom of religion and women\u2019s rights,<\/em>\u201d the spokeswoman added.<\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n<p><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Via\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/312630-amnesty-international-muslim-brotherhood\/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A senior Amnesty International official has been found to have private links with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and revolutionary Islamists accused of plotting a coup in an Arab state. Amnesty\u2019s director of faith and human rights, Yasmin Hussein, stayed overnight at the residence of a Muslim Brotherhood advisor during an official visit to Egypt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-174721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}