Amnesty International assembles the Matreshka
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 1:33PM The French branch of the Amnesty International released a video titled 'Ne laissons pas le charme de la Russie nous faire oublier ses atrocités' or 'Don't let the charm of Russia forget it's attrocities' in English, as a response to the Russia-France year 2010...
The video as you can see is aimed at Western audience. I don't see how Russians would be impressed by something so stereotypical as Matreshka (the Russian doll) and Korobushka (the Tetris tune). The stereotypes do not end here, the whole video rides on the stereotypes of contemporary Russia generated by the mainstream media. Killings, imprisonment and silencing of the press are not as rampant in Russia as they used to be, majority of these problems originate in the lawless North Caucasus and this will take a while to adjust and will for the foreseeable future feed organisations like the AI. On their website the AI provide a petiton addressed to Dmitriy Medvedev with the following request:
Nous demandons au Président Medvedev de garantir le respect de l'état de droit et d’assurer la protection de la société civile.
We demand of President Medvedev to guarantee respect for the rule of law (state of rights) and to assure protection for the civil society.
It is nice to see them acknowledge that protection of civil society can function with the rule of law established. We can argue that Russia made strides towards rule of law since the lawless nineties, therefore AI should not be making demands but advice and encouragement. Their motivations here are not quite clear, apart from the usuall Russia bashing.
As for Russian responses to AI, one recalls Sozhenitsyn's rebuke of them on the basis of them being too liberal. More recently, Yul'ka Latynina condemned AI's campaign on behalf of Mozzam Begg. She called AI 'useful idiots' and pointed to the fact that Begg was an Islamist. Whose using the AI this time?
Reader Comments (6)
Can't say I am surprised.
Amnesty international is notorious MI6 affiliated group being established by a lawyer who worked for the British Foreign office and financed by the like of George Soros.
That’s why they never acknowledge or pressure governments to support Chechen terrorists groups who openly recruit from mosque and fund raise in Europe the US and Mid East, or condemn Chechen terrorist attacks, atrocities and ethnic cleansing of native Russian and non-Chechen population drug trafficking into Russia and sex trafficking into Europe and the Mid East apart from a weak reference to Israel which was known from more than a decade is a major centre for sex slavery not to mention the activities of Oligarchs like Berezovsky who are given protection in London or the billions of dollars held in offshore British tax havens like the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands .
“Odd Bedfellows
On 10 December 2003, AI co-hosted the following event:
Catastrophe in Chechnya: Escaping the Quagmire
With nearly 250 persons in attendance and presentations by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Ruud Lubbers, the conference was the largest event of its kind dedicated solely to Chechnya to be held in Washington DC.
Hosted by the American Enterprise Institute and co-sponsored by The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, Amnesty International USA, Freedom House, the Jamestown Foundation, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, this event promises to be of great potential significance in articulating a new American attitude toward Russo-Chechen conflict.
Why is AI co-sponsoring this event? NB: all the other co-sponsors are right-wing and dubious organizations.”
Not to mention their history in other countries.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amnesty_International
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_International
They also helped free a "Prisoner of Conscience"a British Muslim named Maajid Nawaz who was a member of Hizb at-Tahrir that is very active in Russia and Central Asia and features quite often in Interfax religion in regards to busted terrorist cells. Where they protecting an intelligence asset?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amnesty-international/the-story-of-maajid-nawaz_b_370528.html
I have tried to find out who is amnesty international financiers past and present yet they do not publicly disclose this information apart from the source watch website but that does not list there major contributors. Funny for such an open and transparent organisation.
The fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski was a former member of the Board of Directors should raise questions.
The Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in almost countries accept for Britain, it is banned in Russia, in India and most other secular governments with a large Muslim population. So this Maajid Nawaz must had been aware that by affiliation with the group he put himself in danger. I wonder if AI would take on the cases of holocaust deniers imprisoned in countries with a ban on holocaust denial, such as Irving.
Or shouldn't AI acknowledge that some countries view certain ideas as threatening?
@Leoš Tomíček
No there official position is that they do not. That is why they did not help Ernst Zundel or his lawyer who defended him being put in prison for years in German for simply publishing material on his website that was in German.
I see the problem, scribblers denying the holocaust get extradited to countries, while people advocating the creation of global Caliphate get the full force of AI's advocacy behind them. This is just hypocritical. Either they accept that things are as they are in some countries or they support any prisoner of consciousness regardless of the ideas they subscribe to.
If French Amnesty International is so concerned about human rights in Russia then they should highlight the French Algerian Islamist who recruit and finance Chechen terrorist groups there and close down the French-Chechen networks or European-Chechen networks.
There was a interview conducted by Dan Rather on CBS Evening News in 2002/03 with a former French Islamists who with Algerian partners in France helped fundraise to Chechen jihadist with stolen jewellery and diamonds which he would then courier it to Switzerland (I think it was Switzerland) where Jewish diamond traders would be it for cash and from there he would use the cash through Turkey to finance Jihadist fighters in Chechnya and support financially fighters widows.
Very interesting and good interview but it does not seem to be posted on the internet.
Nice movie! :-)