The Telegraph reports:
CagePrisoners, run by Moazzam Begg, the former Guantánamo detainee, published a fake picture of Mr Obama with head wounds and headlined it: “Breaking news: Barack Obama is dead.”
The article underneath, which has been duplicated on Muslim forums across the internet, described the US president as a war criminal and claimed he had been killed by Pakistani security forces at a compound near Camberley, Surrey, not far from Sandhurst. Mr Obama’s wife Michelle was also said to have been killed when she was used as “a shield”.
“Obama was cremated at the stake after a Christian funeral on board an aircraft carrier,” the article said, mocking the Muslim funeral given to Osama bin Laden.
The article, by Fahad Ansari, criticised Mr Obama for the campaign of drone attacks against al-Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan and claimed Pakistan believed his killing was “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat the CIA”.
Another article by Asim Qureshi, the executive director of the group, claimed that bin Laden was “one time a hero of the mujahideen in Afghanistan”. He added: “Western history books may seek to remember him as an evil man, but as we know history is written by the victors and there is no end to the war in sight.”
CagePrisoners has received £170,000 from the Joseph Rowntree Trust, which funds social policy research, and £25,000 from the Roddick Foundation, set up by the family of the founder of the Body Shop, Anita Roddick.
Amnesty International has campaigned alongside it on the issue of Guantánamo Bay and on the Gibson inquiry into the treatment of detainees.
The group has been able to move to offices in Camden, north London and to employ three full-time and one part-time member of staff.
Asim Qureshi from the group said the article was “not promoting the killing of Obama” adding that it was “making the point that if we are true to ourselves, how would we envisage this scenario in an alternative narrative.”Amnesty International said it did not approve of the article but would continue to work with the group.
Would Amnesty continue to work with a White Supremacist group which celebrated the prospect of the lynching of President Obama?
Why is Amnesty committed to this unnecessary and self-destructive path?
PS: For those who claim that Amnesty has no “official relationship” with CagePrisoners: here’s their joint submission to the Detainee Inquiry. From three months ago. There are many many more examples.
