I’m sure that there will be a lot more to say about the Labour Party’s Inquiry on Antisemitism and Everything Else which has reported and can be read here.
Just one little point for now. Chakrabarti says:
I myself was subject to this kind of attempt at undermining someone’s good character and good will earlier in the Inquiry process when a Sunday newspaper ran a story about my having shared a platform with a Guantanamo detainee on his release from that legal black hole many years ago. I clearly welcomed his release (for which I had long campaigned) and the speech he gave on that occasion. My suitability to lead the Inquiry was called into question because of incendiary comments that he was reported to have made “recently” (i.e. years after the event I attended). The irony of the story is that the newspaper that criticised me was itself one of the most long-term and consistent campaigners against the injustice that is Guantanamo Bay. But a story is a story and there seems nearly always to be more mileage in undermining debate than encouraging it.
The concern was not that Begg had made incendiary comments after she praised him. It was that, long before she did so, Begg’s politics was clear:
Begg has openly and unashamedly expressed his beliefs, right back to his days of publishing the jihadist text, “The Army of Madinah in Kashmir”, written by the now convicted terrorist, Dhiren Barot. Begg was imprisoned in Guantanamo, having travelled to Afghanistan to build schools for the children of Al Qaeda fighters. His comrade was Abu Rideh, who was regarded as a terrorist fundraiser and therefore subject to various restrictions on his liberty in the United Kingdom. Following a campaign by a coalition of organisations, including CAGE and Amnesty, Rideh was finally allowed to leave the country to join his family. Instead, he travelled to Afghanistan, where he was killed in a drone strike.
There is nothing wrong with campaigning for somebody you believe has been unjustly detained to be released.
There is everything wrong with describing them as a “wonderful advocate for human rights and in particular for human liberty”.
